Essential Elsewhere
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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.
Steve Earle: Copperhead Road (1988)
Of all the artists to emerge in the past two and a half decades, you can effortlessly make the case that Steve Earle has moved the most. With confidence, and often great success, he has worked within genres we might define as country, folk-blues, alt.rock, bluegrass, country-rock . . . Earle has been a provocative political voice (pro-Kerry, anti-Bush and the wars in Iraq and... more >>
Added: 3 Apr 2013
Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation (1988)
There are some albums (such as Sgt Peppers) which so crystallise their period that you cannot imagine that era without them. Then there are others (The Velvet Underground's debut) which appear to stand so diametrically opposed to the prevailings movement of their time that it is usually only in retrospect their impact and importance can be truly appreciated. Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation of... more >>
Added: 18 Jan 2013 
1 Comment
Small Faces: Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake (1968)
With Small Faces' brief catalogue of albums now remastered and reissued, their growth towards Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake -- famously in a round cover like a tobacco tin and with panels that opened out -- can now be traced to this, their finest moment. Singer/writer/guitarist Stevie Marriott was one the great British r'n'b singers and the band of singers/writers Ronnie Lane and keyboard... more >>
Added: 26 Nov 2012 1 Comment
Dennis Wilson: Pacific Ocean Blue (1977)
It was a tragic irony that Dennis Wilson, the only genuine surf-rat in the Beach Boys, should have drowned. But by 1983 when he died in the waters of Marina Del Rey, he was a spent force who had succumbed to alcohol, depression and cocaine -- and he'd only recorded one solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue in 1977. That was also a tragedy because POB suggested that if anyone could have carried the... more >>
Added: 8 Sep 2012 1 Comment
Blue Cheer: Vincebus Eruptum (1968)
For many decades I kept a clipping about Blue Cheer and this particular album inside the record cover, and of course when I went to look for it recently it was gone. But the gist of it was this: Blue Cheer were the loudest band in the whole history of ever, according to the writer, and when they recorded this monster in a North Hollywood studio they blew out all the speakers or the desk (the... more >>
Added: 23 Aug 2012 2 Comments
Little Richard: Here's Little Richard (1957)
Among John Lennon's distinctive and funny drawings is a cartoon panel from '79 of him out walking with his son Sean. They encounter a character on the street who tells him "I've been getting in to jazz, man!". Lennon's witheringly funny reply is, "I've been trying to avoid it all my life". In his musical taste at least, Lennon was remarkably consistent. When he said... more >>
Added: 20 Aug 2012 1 Comment
Jeff Beck: Blow by Blow (1975)
Even the guitarist's biggest fans concede Jeff Beck rarely makes a truly satisfying album, but this -- the seventh under his own name -- was the exception. In 1968 after his stint in the Yardbirds came to a natural end, he formed what in retrospect was a supergroup. It included singer Rod Stewart, bassist Ronnie Wood, and journeyman drummer Mick Waller, plus guests Jimmy Page and John... more >>
Added: 19 Aug 2012
The Mothers of Invention: Uncle Meat (1969)
While it is entirely possible to live a happy and fulfilled life without hearing any music by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, there really is no need to be so deprived given the extensive re-issue programme that was undertaken after his death in 1993. And, Lord protect us, here it all over again in 2012. All the Zappa/Mothers albums are out there already on remixed,... more >>
Added: 9 Aug 2012 1 Comment
Albert King: Born Under a Bad Sign (1967)
By the time Albert King started recording the music which would appear as his seminal Born Under a Bad Sign album, he'd been around and seen around for so long he'd reached a point – at age 43 – where he knew who he was and what his sound had to be. King's story until these sessions also mirrored the progress of the blues from its acoustic rural origins in the South to the... more >>
Added: 23 Jul 2012
Pere Ubu, The Modern Dance (1978)
It has become fashionable lately to speak of “post-rock” and cite bands such as Tortoise, Sigur Ros and Explosions in the Sky as being groups which use the tools of rock, but create music that isn’t identifiably within the rock genre. Of course nothing comes from nothing and there may just be precedents for post-rock -- such as Pere Ubu out of Cleveland who, in the mid... more >>
Added: 14 Jul 2012
Downliners Sect: The Sect (1964)
Some people live interesting lives . . . but when it comes time to check out their timing is appalling: the author Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, The Doors of Perception) died the same day John F Kennedy was shot (you can guess who got the greater coverage) and Dean Martin checked out on Christmas Day which isn’t the best time to get a nice obituary. Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy also... more >>
Added: 24 Jun 2012
Jon Hassell: Dream Theory in Malaya (1981)
When I imported this album in 1981 it was on the basis of faith: faith that the Melody Maker writer who had hailed it was on the money, that Brian Eno who appeared as a collaborator and on whose EG Music imprint it appeared was right, that it would be as good as their previous collaboration, and that it would arrive intact. My faith was vindicated on all counts and the album has proved a... more >>
Added: 30 May 2012
Donna Summer, Bad Girls (1979)
In musical arguments, as with political ones, the area of grey between the black and white can be as big as the other two combined. History books say you were either a Beatles or a Stones fan, but my friends and I liked them both -- and the Four Tops, the Dave Clark Five, Lou Christie, Sam the Sham, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Roy Orbison and Dusty Springfield. Sensible people... more >>
Added: 18 May 2012
Merle Haggard: If I Could Only Fly (2000)
At the time of this writing in mid 2012, Merle Haggard is 73 and actually, against every preconception we might have about his tough, booze-afflicted life and hard travelling -- he' still looking pretty good. At least, when he appeared at the White House in 2010 to pick yet another well-deserved honour he scrubbed up pretty well. Stories about Haggard are legion and legendary -- we... more >>
Added: 14 May 2012
T.Rex: Electric Warrior (1971)
By the time of the Tanx album in 1973, things were starting to go sour for T.Rex's frontman Marc Bolan. He hadn't cared when his old champion John Peel had dismissed his glam pop for its shallowness, or that Bowie and others were starting to snap at his heels. He was in fact oblivious to it all, he was far too busy being the star he always wanted to be. So he perhaps never noticed that the... more >>
Added: 7 May 2012 2 Comments
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; the... more >>
Added: 29 Apr 2012
Burning Spear, Marcus Garvey/Garvey's Ghost (1975)
In Ted Bafaloukos' '78 film Rockers -- a lightweight comedy but excellent quasi-doco about the world of Jamaican music with a stunning cast of reggae luminaries -- there are any number of remarkable scenes: the lead character is a drummer (played by Leroy "Horsemouth" Brown) who puts a down-payment on a motorbike with the idea of selling cheap records into shops all over the island.... more >>
Added: 25 Feb 2012 1 Comment
Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble: Mnemosyne (1999)

When jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek teamed with the classical vocal group the Hilliard Ensemble for the warm yet glacial holy minimalism of Officium in 1994, not even ECM label boss Manfred Eicher - whose idea it was - could have predicted its crossover success. It became the banner album in ECM's already excellent 10-year-old label for contemporary classical recordings, ECM New... more >>
Added: 2 Feb 2012
Nick Lowe: Dig My Mood (1998)
It is coming up close to two decades since Nick Lowe -- once a laddish and witty figure in British rock in the immediate post-punk days -- decided to take the long view on his career and reposition himself. As he told Elsewhere late last year, “Back when I first got noticed in the Seventies it was for being rather irreverent and popping bubbles, and I was a bit cheeky. A certain... more >>
Added: 16 Jan 2012
Max Romeo: War Ina Babylon (1976)
When Max Romeo's Holding Out My Love to You album was released in '81 it came with heavy patronage: Keith Richards was a Romeo fan and had produced some of the tracks . . . so there was a cover sticker proclaiming "Featuring Keith Richards -- Free Colour Poster of Keith and Mick Inside". Romeo had moved from Jamaica to New York a few years previous (he wrote and starred in a... more >>
Added: 12 Nov 2011
