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A selection of cornerstone albums to help you build an interesting collection of diverse Elsewhere music. These essays will introduce albums which can lead you into whole threads of music -- be they power-pop, world music, European jazz, hip-hop, reggae, alt.country or just plain rock'n'roll. Areas you might not have otherwise considered or enjoyed.
Explore . . . and don't be afraid of going Elsewhere.
Elvis Costello: Imperial Bedroom (1982)
By the time Elvis Costello got to this remarkable, emotionally dense and astonishingly concise album (so many moods, styles and emotions in 50 minutes) he had become well separated from his post-punk peers. By '82 -- and he had appeared just five years previous -- he had skirted off from punk-fuelled rock through country music and had flirted with jazz as well as classic r'n'b . . . He was... more >>
Added: 8 Mar 10
John Mayall: Blues From Laurel Canyon (1968)
In the wake of '67s Sgt Pepper's the new thing in rock was "the concept album" and at the tail-end of that decade and well into the 70s a long list of bands weighed in: the Pretty Things with Parachute,The Who with Tommy, The Moody Blues, Genesis, Yes . . . Mostly these were musicians with an art school background and so testing themselves over a 40 minute album was... more >>
Added: 28 Feb 10 
3 Comments
Donovan: Troubadour; The Definitive Collection 1964-76 (1998 compilation)
When I interviewed Donovan in 1998 -- mindful I might have to introduce him to a readership which had probably never heard of him -- I noted that even back in his heyday of the Sixties he'd been a hard one to figure out. The "folkie" tag he'd been pinned with after the success of his first songs Colours and Catch the Wind (and his "protest" song, the cover of Buffy... more >>
Added: 22 Feb 10
Frank Sinatra: In the Wee Small Hours (1955)
Some may remember it, that strange time when we were told that Tony Bennett was hip with the grunge crowd. It seemed unlikely (I doubted it) but it at least gave me the opportunity to interview him and he was, of course, positively charming as you might have expected. Quite why anyone would prefer Tony Bennett over Frank Sinatra was always the question, especially the so-called dissenting... more >>
Added: 14 Feb 10 1 Comment
Scott Walker, In Five Easy Pieces (2003)
The only time I saw Scott Walker I burst out laughing. It was the mid-60s and he was one of the (non-sibling) Walker Brothers on a package tour with the Yardbirds (guitarist Jimmy Page) and Roy Orbison. When the Walker Brothers ran on to the Auckland Town Hall stage, skinny-legged guys in tight pants and teased-out bouffants, they looked like hairy lollipops. My mates and I hooted with... more >>
Added: 10 Feb 10
Magazine: Real Life (1978)
If there was a godfather of the Manchester scene in the Eighties there's a good case to be made that it wasn't Tony Wilson (who founded the Hacienda and Factory Records) but that it was Howard Devoto, singer and songwriter for Magazine, the band he formed in 1977. In that crucial year Devoto promoted the two local concerts by the Sex Pistols (poorly attended but hugely influential) and had... more >>
Added: 8 Feb 10
Vanessa Daou: Zipless (1994)
There is sexy music and there is sex music. And there can be quite a difference between the two in execution. Prince made a lot of sex music but slightly less sexy music; Donna Summer and Jane Birkin brought orgasms to music -- and so did Yoko Ono who screamed it to the ceiling and beyond. Ono was sex, the other two sexy. Sometimes Grace Jones could be both. Sexy music -- the... more >>
Added: 31 Jan 10
Little Feat: Dixie Chicken (1973)
The critics liked Little Feat -- and Dixie Chicken -- a whole lot better than the public. Today any number of greybeards will tell you how they were deeply into the band but (as with those who were always into the Velvet Underground) the facts speak for themselves. Only 30,000 bothered to go to a shop and buy Dixie Chicken when it was released. It was the band's third commercial failure... more >>
Added: 24 Jan 10
David Sylvian: Gone to Earth (1986)
You never know quite how people are going to turn out: they find bodies under the floorboards in the house of that polite boy next door, the rebel girl in school becomes a nun, and David Sylvian . . . .? When David Sylvian (born David Batt in Kent, 1958) first appeared on the music scene it was as a member of the glam rock band Japan and it was said he'd adapted his surname from Sylvain... more >>
Added: 18 Jan 10 1 Comment
Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers: Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers (1971)
Although the blues can be a sophisticated music, there's something more earthy, vibrant and appealing about it when it is played from somewhere further south than the cerebral cortext. Hound Dog Taylor played from a point somewhere between the heart, the gut and the groin -- and made the most thrilling music to come out of the Chicago blues scene in the late Sixties/early Seventies.... more >>
Added: 11 Jan 10 2 Comments
Various Artists; Chicago/The Blues/Today! Vol 1 (1966)
With an American history over a century long, the blues isn't easy an easy journey to begin on: do you go at it chronologically from slave chants and field hollers, or work back from white popularisers like George Thorogood, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Led Zeppelin? Given that most people live in what we might call the post-rock era it might be easiest -- and is certainly rewarding -- to hit... more >>
Added: 8 Jan 10
Ravi Shankar, Improvisations (1962)
George Harrison quite correctly referred to the sitar master Pandit Ravi Shankar as "the godfather of world music" -- and Shankar was creating and giving his blessing to cross-cultural fusions and experiments long before the phrase "world music" was even thought of. There are of course many dozens of Shankar albums in the world -- from straight-ahead classical ragas to... more >>
Added: 3 Jan 10
Dave Dobbyn: Twist (1994)
With the Australian success of the Footrot Flats film in the early Nineties, it made sense for Dave Dobbyn to relocate across the Tasman and ride the wave of popularity of the songs he wrote for it. And in that great tradition of indifference Australians have shown New Zealand musicians -- more so then than today -- Dobbyn’s career languished. But his music didn’t. In... more >>
Added: 30 Dec 09 2 Comments
Dr John: Gris Gris (1968)
Long careers generally mean the raw and rough edges of the early days are smoothed out, and that audiences forget just how edgy and unusual the artist’s music actually was. So it is with Dr John whose career reaches way back to playing piano in bars as teenager in New Orleans during the 50s alongside legendary figures such as Professor Longhair and Huey Smith. The Dr -- Malcolm... more >>
Added: 13 Dec 09
Young Marble Giants: Colossal Youth (1980)
Just as Dylan emerged in the middle of the day-glo psychedelic era on a quieter rural route with John Wesley Harding, and the Cowboy Junkies whispered their way to the foreground amidst the bellicose noise of grunge, so Young Marble Giants emerged in the post-punk era with something quieter and more considered than the jerky anger of bands like Public Image, Gang of Four and The Fall.... more >>
Added: 7 Dec 09
The Church: Priest = Aura (1992)
With the luxury of time, lowered expectation and some haze-inducing drugs, a kind of sublime, relaxed psychedelia can be the happy result. As in the case of this album by one of Australia‘s finest bands of the Eighties and Nineties When the Church emerged out of Canberra in the early Eighties they had some of the guitar jangle and post-punk Petty-cum-Byrds which later... more >>
Added: 29 Nov 09
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica (1969)
When I first heard Trout Mask Replica some time in early '70 I fled. It was all very well being told that Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) sounded like Howlin' Wolf, but that would be like describing happy, mop-top Beatlemania to someone then playing them I Am The Walrus. Or showing them lots of pictures of eyed-shadowed Ziggy Stardust and getting all excited about glam-rock -- then playing... more >>
Added: 23 Nov 09
This Heat: This Heat (1979)
Understandably, many hail the Sixties as the greatest ever decade for popular music: the undeniable brilliance of the Beatles and what they spawned on both sides of the Atlantic, not to mention globally; the whole shift from pop to rock, and from singles to albums, which freed minds and arses that followed; the innovations of Hendrix, Cream and Pink Floyd; Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa;... more >>
Added: 15 Nov 09
Philip Glass: Koyaanisqatsi (1983)
There are few things more depressing than observing a revolution become a style (or the Beatles’ Revolution become a Nike ad). Or to witness innovation morph into cliché. When director Godfrey Reggio’s innovative film Koyaanisqatsi appeared in the early Eighties it had an immediate impact on popular music and film culture. Ostensibly a narration-free look at the impact of... more >>
Added: 7 Nov 09
The Feelies: Crazy Rhythms (1980)
Pub quiz time and your starter for 10 points: Who was the drummer in Talking Heads? “Okay there was David Byrne and . . . Tina Weymouth on bass and . . . Any of you guys know?” “Jerry . . . Harrison? Yeah, Jerry Harrison was the guitarist and the drummer was . . . . . .” Okay, let’s flip all the cards and remind you that the drummer in Talking Heads... more >>
Added: 2 Nov 09
