Top 20 Records of 2023

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

2023 was another great year for music and for Paradise Found Records and Tapes. In April we celebrated our second anniversary at our Pearl Street location and in September we opened a new store in Petaluma, less than an hour north of San Francisco. A huge thanks to all of our customers in Colorado, California or wherever you are (that’s right, we ship to other states) for shopping with us and for coming in for listening parties, concerts and other in-store events. We couldn’t do it without you! We appreciate your business and we love your smiling faces! Just a reminder that both stores will have expanded hours to help you find that perfect gift or just to buy yourself some much-deserved music. We’re also having a listening party to share our favorite music of the year on Friday, December 15th at 7:15 pm. Reserve your spot now in store or by phone (303/444-1760) for $10 (which counts towards any purchase).

Here are my favorite records of the year including archival releases, along with a mention of an amazing live event. I’ve listed the new releases in alpha order, but this is the third year in a row that the first-record-by-alpha is also my best album of the year (following 2022’s Big Thief and 2021’s Courtney Barnett LPs):

Boygenius – The Record

Supergroups are typically more an excuse for famous musicians to play together than an opportunity to break new ground. The debut full-length release from boygenius, the trio first formed in 2018 by Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, is that rare instance where the sum exceeds its parts. Following up their initial EP, The Record is a sad girl supernova in which the trio largely alternate songwriting credits. But even as they take turns in the spotlight, the material brings out the best of each member and the choruses are divine. It might resonate most with twenty-somethings, but its indie-rock and folk grooves are multigenerational. The group also released a second EP, The Rest, in October. (Favorite track: “True Blue”)

 

Feist – Multitudes

Canada’s Leslie Feist, who goes by her last name, is nearly twenty years past the breakout fame that followed Apple’s use of The Reminder‘s “1234” in an early iPod commercial. Multitudes is just the third record she’s made in the intervening years, but it’s her best album to date, slightly ahead of 2011’s superb Metals. Written in the wake of her simultaneously becoming a parent and losing a parent, the fragile folk songs mirror the delicacy of life. The compositions are tender, sparsely illuminated songs that dissolve into nothingness or explode into lush, harmony-filled choruses like flowers bursting into bloom. (Favorite track: “Hiding Out in the Open”)

 

Foo Fighters – But Here We Are

The eleventh studio effort from Dave Grohl’s band carried an emotional weight not heard since the group’s debut following Kurt Cobain’s suicide. Both Grohl’s mother and best friend/bandmate Taylor Hawkins died in 2022, and here he begins to come to terms with his grief-filled year, dealing with loss while looking for strength and insight to create new art. Daughter Violet lends her chops to “Show Me How,” and Grohl resumes drum duty throughout for the first time in decades. The album’s next-to-last track, the epic “The Teacher,” is ostensibly about Grohl’s public school teacher mother, but it certainly also applies to Hawkins. It’s impossible not to be moved hearing Grohl try to blot out his dark reality by screaming “Wake up” before mournfully singing “Goodbye” over and over again at the song’s coda. Sad, stunning and powerful. (Favorite track: “The Teacher”)

 

PJ Harvey – I Inside The Old Year Dying

PJ Harvey’s tenth studio effort fits with the rest of her discography in her devout focus on following her muse regardless of sales potential. I Inside The Old Year Dying‘s British folk seems steeped in centuries-old lore from some dark foreboding countryside. Inspired by an epic poem she wrote entitled “Orlam,” many of the songs feature their own language while also referencing the Bible, Shakespeare and Elvis Presley. The end result is intoxicating and mysterious, a ticket into an intense, sometimes scary but ultimately rewarding journey. (Favorite track: “Lwonesome Tonight”)

 

Mitski – The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We

Last year’s Laurel Hell, featured Mitski channeling Abba and Motown to create her most accessible music.  Not surprisingly, it helped cement her indie diva status and led to ever-increasing crowds. Her follow-up comes after an unusually short interval and is a stark about-face that steers clear of pure pop. This is the first Mitski album to feature pedal steel since she relocated to Nashville in 2020, but that doesn’t mean it’s remotely country. She’s still struggling with how to avoid dark mental corners and find a degree of contentment, and here Mitski discovers a quieter, more reflective orchestral pop that is no less evocative even if it’s a little less welcoming. (Favorite track: “Heaven”)

 

Caroline Polachek – Desire, I Want To Turn Into You

Former Buff and Chairlift member Polachek unleashes a torrent of electro-pop heaven on her fourth solo album. Desire, I Want to Turn Into You isn’t afraid to source the classics: “Welcome To My Island” steals the “hey hey hey hey’s” from “Don’t You Forget About Me,” while “Pretty In Possible” borrows liberally from “Tom’s Diner.” With veins of rock, trip-hop and electronic music pulsing throughout, Polachek’s sound is simultaneously familiar and new. Famous fans like Taylor Swift and the Haim sisters are already on board. Can the American public be far behind? (Favorite track: “Welcome to My Island”)

 

Margo Price– Strays

Like Caroline Polachek, Margo Price is a musician who’s been bubbling under the surface for years and is due for more widespread recognition. Price has been navigating the country and Americana worlds since 2016; her excellent 2022 memoir, Maybe We’ll Make It, told of her struggle to find her audience. Strays, her fourth studio album, is her most mature to date. It may have been conceived under the influence of psychedelics, but it showcases the most wide-ranging songwriting skill of her career. With the help of friends including Sharon Van Etten and Mike Campbell of Heartbreakers fame, the record rocks hard at times (“Been to the Mountain”) but also includes radio-friendly grooves (“Radio”), longer story-songs (“County Road”) and deeply personal, solo folk (“Lydia”). Price released Strays II, a follow-up of additional tracks from the sessions, last month. (Favorite track: “Radio”)

 

Vampire Weekend – Frog On The Bass Drum Vol. 01

If you weren’t lucky enough to see and jump on the email announcement, you missed out on Vampire Weekend’s first live album, available only through their fan site and gone inside an hour. But what a gift for those lucky enough to get a copy: the record included the rare B-side “Ladies of Cambridge,” an extended take on “M79” from their debut, a rendition of “Pizza Party” from Ezra Koenig’s first band L’Homme Run, and best of all, ten glorious minutes of the group covering Bob Dylan’s “Jokerman,” from his oft-overlooked eighties gem Infidels. (Favorite track: “Jokerman”)

 

Wilco – Cousin

Wilco’s response to the pandemic was to hunker down in their Chicago loft and create Cruel Country, a double album call back to their earlier alt-country days. Their follow-up is more of the alt-rock territory they’ve been travelling since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Produced by Cate Le Bon and recorded both pre- and post-pandemic, Jeff Tweedy re-embraces dissonance and noise on Cousin, and in the process continues the band’s resurgence nearly three decades after their debut. (Favorite track: “Meant To Be”)

 

 

Lucinda Williams – Stories From a Rock’n’Roll Heart

How strong is Lucinda Williams’ artistic will? In the wake of a 2020 stroke, she put a series of tribute albums to the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, and Bob Dylan among others, followed by Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You, her revealing memoir released in April. For the first LP of new material since her recovery, she recruited Bruce Springsteen, Angel Olsen and Margo Price. The end result doesn’t reach for the emotional depths of her finest work, but that doesn’t make its hard-rocking selection of tracks any less vital. A worthwhile addition to a substantive discography. (Favorite track: “New York Comeback”)

The next six: Margo Cilker – Valley of Heart’s Delight; Peter Gabriel — I/O; Rhiannon Giddens – You’re the One; Jenny Lewis – Joy’All; Paramore — This is Why; Chris Stapleton – Higher

 

Top Four Archival Releases of the year: 

Grateful Dead – RFK Stadium, Washington, DC 6/10/73

Does any other band mine its archives as frequently as the Grateful Dead? There was no shortage of material to pick from in 2023, but the highlight was this 8LP box of one of the group’s most famous shows, a coheadlining turn with the Allman Brothers from 1973. Through four and a half hours (!), the Dead offer classics, new material and songs in early forms: “Wave That Flag” became “US Blues” and “They Love Each Other” evolved into a shuffle on Jerry Garcia’s Reflections. The highlight–not including the nearly-thirty-minute “Dark Star”–is the lengthy jam at the end that finds the Dead and Allmans combining for strong covers of Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly, Arthur Crudup and Chuck Berry classics. The joyful sound of Jerry Garcia and Dickey Betts sparring on lead guitar should be required listening for jam band aficionados. (Favorite track: “It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry”)

 

Joni Mitchell – Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years 1972-1975

Blue might be Joni Mitchell’s most famous album, but her growth in the years that followed was no less impressive as she moved in a jazz-focused direction without sacrificing her ear for melody or confessional songwriting. The latest edition of her Archives series digs deep into her richest period, when she created Court and Spark, her biggest selling album, and The Hissing of Summer Lawns, its follow-up. There is so much to love about the unreleased tracks from this period: revised takes of “Raised on Robbery” with, alternately, Graham Nash and Neil Young, a long piano medley of Court and Spark tracks, and revealing mid-seventies concerts including a solo Joni from Carnegie Hall and one with the L.A. Express supporting her in Los Angeles. Nirvana for Joni Mitchell lovers. (Favorite track: “Help Me”)

 

My Morning Jacket – Live Vol. 3: Bonnaroo 2004

Nearly twenty-five years after their debut, My Morning Jacket have cemented their status among the jam band crowd and southern rock fans; they mix up their setlists as well as anyone and can turn any song into a long, inspired exploration. This release is of one of the band’s most famous shows, which took place in the pouring rain and burnished their reputation as a live act. The group plays most of It Still Moves, the third and still best album in a career of exceptional work. Previously only available digitally, this 2LP set is a great introduction to the band and includes powerful versions of MMJ gems “Phone Went West” and “Steam Engine.” (Favorite track: “Steam Engine”)

 

The Who – Who’s Next/Life House

The Who are one of the defining acts of classic rock, and perhaps no Who album is more beloved than Who’s Next, the masterpiece bookended by “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Two years past its fiftieth anniversary, Pete Townsend finally got around to releasing the treasure trove of demos and outtakes that started as a rock opera called Life House before ultimately becoming the less thematically ambitious Who’s Next. Through 155 tracks–89 never released before–this box chronicles an artist struggling to convert his vision into reality while following-up another landmark, Tommy. For background, the box contains a 172-page graphic novel of the story Townsend was trying to tell, a prescient narrative which foretold the Internet and the hive mind. (Favorite track: “Teenage Wasteland”)

 

Best Live Show of the year: U2:UV at The Sphere, Las Vegas

It’s so rare when something so overhyped exceeds expectations, but U2’s ongoing residency at the new, orb-shaped venue in Las Vegas scores on all levels. Presenting the group’s innovative 1991 Achtung Baby album, which somehow managed to top the 1987 Joshua Tree LP that made them global superstars, the band makes the most of the venue’s incredible technology. I’ve never heard a better sounding concert, and yet there wasn’t a single speaker in sight. Roughly speaking, the show was 33% bare bones musical presentation, 33% music with images of the band performing in startling depth and clarity at massive projection sizes, and 33% jaw-dropping, overwhelming and unforgettable visual effects. Tickets may be pricey and hard to get, but U2:UV is well worth it both for fans of the band and lovers of the live music experience. See it if you have the chance before the residency wraps up in early March.

Steely Dan’s Ten Best Songs

/22 Comments/in , , /by

At this point in the evolution of popular music, most seventies rock bands have been relegated to the dustbin of history. There may be no shortage of acts selling concert tickets to boomers, and most people over sixty-five can engage in a healthy “Beatles or Stones” debate, but few artists from the decade still resonate with younger audiences. The biggest exception might be Steely Dan, who have been sampled endlessly and who pioneered a detached, hipper-than-thou attitude found in so much modern culture. Cofounders Walter Becker and Donald Fagen married that sensibility to a sound that incorporated their love of jazz into classic rock.

Who would have thought such “funked-up Muzak” would be finding new fans this far along? Steely Dan’s smooth if occasionally soulless studio polish spawned a larger yacht rock movement that’s turned lesser seventies acolytes like Toto and Christopher Cross into icons. They attract both rock and jazz fans; who else used Wayne Shorter of Miles Davis/Weather Report fame and Timothy Schmit from the Eagles on the same album? And their high-end production quality sounds better as audio technology evolves. Lyrically, Donald Fagen said it best: “If we were ahead of our time, it was simply because we grew up with a certain natural ironic stance which later became the norm.” Steely Dan was smarter than you before the Internet made it so easy for people to tell you how much smarter they are than you.

The funniest encapsulation of Steely Dan comes from Charles Shaar Murray: “The end result is like something Stevie Wonder might have concocted if he were white, Jewish, sighted and in the throes of an acute attack of nostalgia for the Kennedy years.” Granted, Murray was actually reviewing The Nightfly, Fagen’s first solo effort, but that record was hardly a huge departure. Shortly after their third album, 1974’s Pretzel Logic, Steely Dan abandoned the notion of being a touring act altogether, a daring anti-commercial stance. Subsequently, their records featured session ringers brought in by co-writers Fagen and Becker for each song and put through exhaustive sessions in search of a perfect solo. Surprisingly, Becker opted to not even play on two of the seven tracks on Aja, the group’s pinnacle.

Steely Dan albums fall into one of three tiers. Their best work–Aja, The Royal Scam, Countdown to Ecstasy and Katy Lied–maintain a sonic theme from the first song to the last. Each album might be slightly different from the others, but its parts fit together like puzzle pieces to form a unified whole. Can’t Buy a Thrill and Pretzel Logic are excellent but more random collections, unsurprising considering the former was the band’s debut with a different lead singer and the latter was the last time they toured. Gaucho gets its own tier: it may be thematically consistent, but it’s more focused on sound quality than song quality, and its creation was followed by the dissolution of the partnership for more than a decade.

Inspired by the recent, long-overdue vinyl reissues of the group’s catalog, including new, more expensive 45 rpm pressings from Analogue Productions’ UHQR (Ultra High Quality Record) series, here in reverse order are the ten best Steely Dan songs. Every track embodies the band’s legacy while avoiding their more cloying inclinations.

#10–”Doctor Wu” (Katy Lied)

Katy Lied is an outlier in the Steely Dan catalog. Perhaps their most subtle work, the 1975 release failed to capitalize on the huge success of its predecessor, Pretzel Logic.  The excessively dark lyrics didn’t help.  “Black Friday” equated the 1929 stock market crash with a larger societal reckoning, “Everyone’s Gone to the Movies” romanticized showing pornography to children, and “Chain Lightning” found two former Nazis reminiscing about the connection they felt at a Hitler rally. But the first record that found the group operating as more of a collective hinted at the polish later explored with such effectiveness on Aja. “Doctor Wu” speaks of longing for and scoring drugs, as its soft, meditative verses resolve into a lush chorus and an evocative Phil Woods sax solo.

#9–”Time Out Of Mind” (Gaucho)

Steely Dan’s final effort before their extended hiatus included this love letter to heroin. After its release, Walter Becker fell into an extended depression spurred by addiction that culminated in a relocation to Hawaii to reboot his lifestyle. “Time Out Of Mind” is a beautiful, horn-driven song that tries to capture the allure of smack: the anticipation, the act of consumption, and the warm, enveloping buzz. Nothing cryptic about the lyrics here: the song specifically refers to chasing the dragon (e.g. smoking heroin), the silver foil that changes color during the process, and the city in Tibet where the opium originates. Lou Reed’s description in his famous Velvet Underground song is a slow build where the heartbeat quickens as the user reaches their goal; for Steely Dan, the high is defined more by “perfection and grace.”

#8–”The Boston Rag” (Countdown to Ecstasy)

A loping tempo set to a descending guitar line, “The Boston Rag” combines classic Steely Dan elements: cryptic words with references only the songwriters truly get, a killer chorus, and a brief piano interlude leading to a scorching guitar solo by Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. Naturally, “The Boston Rag” is actually set in New York, with references to “Lady Bayside” and Seventh Avenue. When they were still a touring band, Steely Dan had three amazing guitarists: Becker, the more jazz-influenced Denny Dias, and Jeff “Skunk’ Baxter, who like Yacht Rock deity Michael McDonald later joined The Doobie Brothers, and who leans into a distortion level here soon to vanish from the band’s records.

#7–”Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” (Pretzel Logic)

Steely Dan may be the most sampled rock act in history: Beyonce, Ice Cube and De La Soul are among the more than 150 artists that have sampled them. But long before hip hop, they themselves sampled jazz: “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” the first single and track off their third album, starts with a short marimba solo (of course) that dissolves into a piano motif copped from Horace Silver’s “Song For My Father.” The song was the group’s most sophisticated effort up to that point in their search for the ideal jazz-rock hybrid. Contrary to rumors, it’s about a failed romance, not a marijuana cigarette. 

#6–”Home At Last” (Aja)

Here’s a track that shows just how much Steely Dan could accomplish with a horn section. With a major assist from Timothy Schmit on background vocals, “Home At Last” is a lyrical recasting of a passage from Homer’s “Odyssey,” but is also easily interpreted as being about two East Coast natives, Becker and Fagen, longing to leave the Los Angeles sun for the home they know better. “Home At Last” is also notable for Walter Becker’s beautiful guitar solo; no matter how much he relied on studio musicians to get the sound he was hearing in his head, sometimes he still had to do it himself.

#5–”Razor Boy” (Countdown to Ecstasy)

After the fiery intro of “Bodhisattva,” 1973’s Countdown to Ecstasy settled into more subtle, nuanced fare with this gem. Featuring Victor Feldman’s marimba and an unforgettable chorus, “Razor Boy” is the earliest composition to point towards the grail of Aja. Despite its sad message–whether it’s about the perils of addiction or the dying embers of a relationship is for you to deduce–the harmonies and the melody overpower the melancholy to leave the listener smiling.

#4–”Deacon Blues” (Aja)

The closest Steely Dan ever got to autobiography was this classic track from their most beloved album. Fagen’s vocals inhabit the role of a grizzled veteran coming to grips with his approaching mortality and plotting a path towards contentment. “I cried when I wrote this song, sue me if I play too long” are the most personal lines the pair wrote. The story of an over-the-hill jazz aficionado climaxes with a beautiful sax solo by Pete Christlieb, who recorded it after finishing his day job in The Tonight Show Band. “Deacon Blues” is one of the group’s most beloved tunes and arguably the best way to introduce someone to Steely Dan.

#3–”Show Biz Kids” (Countdown to Ecstasy)

The first single off of Steely Dan’s second album is unlike anything that came before or after. Featuring a Rick Derringer slide guitar solo recorded at Caribou Ranch in Nederland, “Show Biz Kids” is the same loop repeated for four minutes without a chorus, released years before the Talking Heads popularized the concept on Remain in Light. Doomed to fail as a hit because it was so uncommercial, the song was decades ahead of its time, highlighting the crass consumerism of Las Vegas, poking fun at hipster culture and the group’s own fans, and using a rap-style vocal delivery. Long before the phrase “Nepo Baby” entered the lexicon, Steely Dan gave us this earworm.

#2–”The Caves Of Altamira” (The Royal Scam)

Chicago (the group, not the city) and Blood, Sweat and Tears might have blazed trails combining rock with large horn sections, but no one made a big band sound better than Steely Dan. “My Old School” and “Night by Night” are the earliest examples of Dan compositions with horns, but “The Caves Of Altamira” is the best, an irresistible chorus alongside lyrics that imagine a child adventuring into Spain’s famous cave and marveling at 36,000 year-old prehistoric art. 

#1–”Aja” (Aja)

Aja–both the album and the song–are peak Steely Dan. By this point the studio was practically a third member of the group. Through its nearly eight-minutes, “Aja” reaches heights Steely Dan hadn’t even attempted before. Its Far Eastern-flavored verses lead into lengthy solos from jazz masters Wayne Shorter (on sax) and Steve Gadd (on drums). No Steely Dan song sounded better or more deftly melded jazz and rock.

Interested in a deeper dive? Donald Fagen’s often hilarious 2013 memoir Eminent Hipsters features a tour diary that finds him in full curmudgeon mode, and 2018’s Major Dudes–A Steely Dan Companion compiles reviews and interviews with Becker and Fagen from the past fifty years. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, “Kid Charlemagne” from The Royal Scam came in at #11.

 

Fleetwood Mac: Beyond Rumours

/3 Comments/in , , /by

Ever wonder which albums sell the most at Paradise Found Records? If you’re looking for what’s popular right now, the Boulder Weekly regularly publishes that week’s biggest sellers. Looking back a few months, special events like Record Store Day skew the numbers toward rare releases from Taylor Swift and the Grateful Dead. But some albums sell steadily regardless of trends and seasons. The #1 seller at Paradise Found for many years has been Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, the pinnacle of seventies Southern California pop-rock that chronicled the simultaneous disintegration of two intra-band marriages. Rumours is tied for eighth on the list of best-selling albums of all-time at forty million copies, and our customers have definitely made a small contribution to that total. Whether you’re starting a new vinyl collection or rebuilding an old one, it’s an essential part of any music library.

Anyone that’s ever listened to radio, watched TV or been on TikTok is familiar with “Dreams,” “Go Your Own Way” and “Don’t Stop.” Some might be curious after Daisy Jones & The Six, the best-selling book inspired by the Fleetwood Mac story that spurred an Amazon Prime series that debuted earlier this year. What’s less common knowledge is that the group included eighteen different musicians over a fifty-five-year run that began in 1967 and resulted in seventeen studio albums. The iteration of Fleetwood Mac that created Rumours was its fifth separate lineup, and that doesn’t even include a fake edition that toured in 1974 after a falling out with a manager who claimed he owned the band name and sent out an entirely different batch of musicians under that moniker to prove it. It took a lawsuit to stop that tour, but the silver lining was that the hiatus resulted in the rhythm section of drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie–the group’s two constants–moving to Los Angeles, where Fleetwood “discovered” Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Key contributor/pianist Christine McVie didn’t become a full-fledged member until 1971’s Future Games. Also worth noting: the original lineup’s second single way back in 1968 was Peter Green’s “Black Magic Woman,” Santana’s biggest hit until “Smooth.” 

Take the time to explore beyond Fleetwood Mac and Rumours, the first two albums to feature Buckingham and Nicks, and there’s an incredibly deep catalog of high-quality classic rock. It might be hard to imagine, but for anyone old enough to remember the band from its inception, Fleetwood Mac was first and foremost a British blues band cut from the Cream cloth, contemporaries of the Jeff Beck Group that launched Rod Stewart before Led Zeppelin conquered the earth. Here, in reverse chronological order, are five gems to help with a deeper dive.

Tusk (1979)

How do you follow-up one of the greatest albums of all-time? Any artist would be challenged to replicate that level of success; Lindsey Buckingham opted to scare off as many casual fans as possible. Coming two years on the heels of Rumours, Tusk just might be the most daring LP ever by such a beloved rock act. A disciple of Brian Wilson, Buckingham went into the studio determined to follow his muse regardless of commercial appeal. In some instances that meant heavily percussive material without a bridge or chorus (the title track), in others fuzzed-out vocals and guitars (“Not That Funny”). Spread over two albums, Tusk dared the listener to step outside the box of sunny Southern California rock. The record has sold less than a tenth as much as its predecessor, but don’t be fooled. The Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie contributions (including “Sara” and “Think About Me”) are as good as anything they produced, and Tusk has built a reputation as an underrated, critically adored treasure over the decades since its release.

Buckingham Nicks (1973)

Buckingham Nicks isn’t a Fleetwood Mac record per se, but it’s definitely Mac-adjacent. The duo released only one record before Mick Fleetwood heard them on a visit to the famed Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. Fleetwood asked Buckingham to join, but Buckingham said he’d only do it if Nicks was included, a move that worked out well for all involved. Buckingham Nicks includes one track that was re-recorded by the group, “Crystal,” alongside the same proto-SoCal sound that sold gazillions, albeit in a more stripped down, lo-fi setting. There’s still plenty here for fans to love. It also has collector appeal–never repressed after 1977, a used vinyl copy costs between $45 and $75 depending on condition (watch out for counterfeits). Sadly, Buckingham and Nicks have never been able to agree on a re-release, one that would surely sell well since it’s not available on streaming services.

Bare Trees (1972)

Fleetwood Mac started as a showcase for Peter Green’s blues guitar. Like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and others, there was no shortage of British musicians in the mid-to-late sixties focused on updating and adapting American blues for a more contemporary, rock-hungry audience. The group’s original second guitarist, Jeremy Spencer, famously left the group mid-tour in 1972 after a bad mescaline trip led him into the arms of a Christian cult. By then Fleetwood Mac had already added a third guitarist, Danny Kirwan. Once Spencer left the flock a couple of years after Green’s departure, he was replaced by Bob Welch. Bare Trees is a transitional effort, the last with Kirwan and the first with Welch, but that doesn’t make it any less rewarding. Christine McVie, who married bassist John McVie in 1968, had recently advanced from session player to full member status, and her soulful organ and vocals offer a glimpse of the great success to come. The album includes some of Kirwan’s best songs (“Child of Mine,” “Dust” and the title track), a Bob Welch song (“Sentimental Lady”) that he later reworked into a top ten hit as a solo act, and vintage McVie (“Spare Me a Little”). Bare Trees might be less polished, but it’s almost as infectious as the first two records with Buckingham and Nicks.

Kiln House (1970)

Fleetwood Mac’s fourth effort was their first without Peter Green, and contained material mostly composed by Danny Kirwan and the soon-to-depart Jeremy Spencer. Christine McVie added vocals and keys and also designed the cover, which referenced the oast (aka hop) house where the band had been living during the recording. Kiln House offers a variety of genres; the highlight is certainly the bluesy “Station Man,” one of the group’s all-time best tracks, which they continued to perform live for decades regardless of membership. It also contains fifties-style rave-ups (“This is The Rock,” “Hi Ho Silver”), classic rock (“Jewel-Eyed Judy”) and even a catchy-but-bizarre country and western composition by Spencer (“Blood on the Floor”). At this point the band was searching for a new sound without its longtime leader, but Kiln House is still a surprisingly strong effort that has aged well.

Then Play On (1969)

The group’s third album was the last with founder Peter Green and the first to feature Danny Kirwan. One of Fleetwood Mac’s most-covered songs, “Oh Well,” sprung from the sessions for the LP (although it was omitted from the first pressing). The song has reached a near “Stairway to Heaven” level of ubiquity; it’s been covered by artists as diverse as Tom Petty, Haim and Ratt, although few have bothered with the lengthy, instrumental “Part Two,” which includes Green on cello and sounds like a spaghetti western soundtrack. Then Play On is blues-oriented but still the most commercial record Green made with the group. It showcases a band branching out into more psychedelic-style jamming and starting to show a softer side, even if it’s a far cry from the sound that struck gold six years later. 

Steely Dan’s Gaucho — Treasure or Trash?

/0 Comments/in , /by

Does Steely Dan’s Gaucho deserve to be included among their best work or is it emblematic of what made them overrated and spurred a backlash against their sound?

Read more

Pink Floyd’s Animals: Treasure or Trash?

/0 Comments/in , /by

This month’s musical offerings include the “2018 Remix” of Pink Floyd’s Animals, originally released in 1977. Why, you may ask, is the 2018 Remix being released in 2022?

Read more

How to Buy: Johnny Cash, in Honor of the Icon’s 90th Birthday

/0 Comments/in , /by

In celebration of one of the most influential musicians of the last seventy years, this month I’m focusing on his story, his appeal and how to find his best material in an incredibly rich, voluminous discography.

Read more

Talking Heads ’20: How To Buy

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Quiz time: what band that was hugely successful in the seventies and eighties has turned down mega-dollars to reunite since? Need some clues? How about a buying guide to all their albums…

Read more

Neil Young’s Buried Treasures

/0 Comments/in , /by

Neil Young is one of the greatest musical legends of modern times… Neil has a plethora of lesser-known deep grooves that are ripe for discovery.

Read more