The Album Considered
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NILS LOFGREN: THE EARLY CAREER, CONSIDERED (1975/1976): Head over heels for Nils
24 Feb 2020 | 6 min read
It's likely that most people who know Nils Lofgren for his brief periods with Neil Young (After the Goldrush, Tonight's the Night, Trans) and his long tenure in Springsteen's E Street Band would also be aware of his parallel solo career. But many might not be familiar with this talented singer, songwriter, guitarist and trampolinist and some excellent albums under his own name in the... > Read more
PETER GREEN: IN THE SKIES and LITTLE DREAMER, CONSIDERED (1979/1980): The slight return in the late Seventies
17 Feb 2020 | 4 min read
The sad story of Sixties singer-guitarist and songwriter Peter Green (born Peter Greenbaum in 1946, of Bethnal Green) probably needs little repeating but the bare facts look like this. After playing in a few local groups as a bassist (one featuring drummer Mick Fleetwood and briefly singer Rod Stewart), he emerged as one of the great blues guitarists in the mid... > Read more
PAUL McCARTNEY: PIPES OF PEACE, CONSIDERED (1983): Must try harder, lacks effort in class
30 Jan 2020 | 4 min read
By the mid Eighties, albums by Paul McCartney were becoming surplus to requirements. It wasn't just that people by that time had about all the McCartney in their life that they needed, but that there was a very discernible drop off in quality and effort, albeit on albums which were highly polished. Yes, he still cracked out popular singles. But... > Read more
YOKO ONO: TAKE ME TO THE LAND OF HELL, CONSIDERED (2013): As ever, Yoko is as Yoko does
9 Sep 2019 | 3 min read
As endearing as it is idiosyncratic, as brilliant as it is bonkers, Yoko Ono's 2013 album Take Me to The Land of Hell (with the Plastic Ono Band) mostly served to remind what a unique artist she has always been . . . whether you like what she does or simply never listened. After the forgettable aural postcards with her husband John Lennon in the late Sixties when they were clowns for... > Read more
PAUL McCARTNEY: AMOEBA GIG, CONSIDERED (2007/2019): That was him standing there
5 Aug 2019 | 5 min read
In the decade after he disbanded Wings at the end of the Seventies, Paul McCartney's recording career on albums offered diminishing returns outside of a string of mostly vacuous chart hits. It wasn't until Flowers in the Dirt in '89 – and even that pulled its punches too much – you felt he still had something serious to offer. The Eighties were tough times for Sixties stars... > Read more
YOKO ONO: FEELING THE SPACE, CONSIDERED (1973): Singing on the feminist frontline
12 Jul 2019 | 5 min read
Put aside Yoko Ono's contributions to the silly audio-verite and self-centred avant-garde albums (“French for bullshit,” John Lennon had said just a few years previous) with Lennon in the late Sixties: the two Unfinished Music volumes Two Virgins (more famous for its cover than its contents) and Life with the Lions, and the vanity project Wedding Album. Take all of them them out... > Read more
Woman Power
WINGS: AT THE SPEED OF SOUND, CONSIDERED (1976): And now, some not so silly love songs?
20 Feb 2019 | 4 min read
Paul McCartney must have been livid with his record company in 1976. Consider: He'd been in the biggest and most culture-changing, money-making band of the century and along the way had written dozens of classic songs; a field-length list which included Yesterday, Penny Lane, Eleanor Rigby, She's Leaving Home and . . . Then when that band broke up he reinvented himself over a couple... > Read more
WINGS: WILD LIFE, CONSIDERED (1971): “And in the end . . .” there's a begin-again?
14 Dec 2018 | 5 min read
In the Beatles' Anthology DVD, their producer George Martin observed that no one – other than the four young men themselves – knew what it was like in the hurricane that was Beatlemania. They only had themselves to rely on for support, solace, humour and an understanding of the fear about what could possibly go wrong when the screaming turned to anger and disgruntled US fans... > Read more
Mumbo
THE ROLLING STONES: BEGGAR'S BANQUET, CONSIDERED (1968): A walking clothesline of styles
3 Oct 2018 | 8 min read | 2
Half a century ago the Rolling Stones released their Beggar's Banquet album, widely considered a return-to-form after the debacle of their shapeless attempt at psychedelia on the largely unlistenable Their Satanic Majesties Request of December 1967, released some six months after the Beatles' Sgt Peppers. In a cover which referred to Pepper's glowing hippie-era colours, Satanic Majesties... > Read more
No Expectations
PAUL McCARTNEY: TUG OF WAR, CONSIDERED (1982): The Mac was back?
28 Jun 2018 | 4 min read
When Paul McCartney left Wings and the Seventies behind he delivered his still interesting McCartney II album of songs and electronic experiments. Danny Baker in the NME wasn't impressed in those heady post-punk days: “McCartney II isn't worth the plastic it's printed on,” he wrote. Then he put the boot in: “Neither is Paul, but he'll go on... > Read more
MILES DAVIS: SKETCHES OF SPAIN, CONSIDERED (1960): Jazz at the interface of classical music
8 May 2017 | 5 min read
When Miles Davis entered Columbia Records’ New York studio in November 1959 with composer/arranger Gil Evans and producer Teo Macero to record the material for the album Sketches of Spain, the trumpeter was not on completely unfamiliar territory. He had seen and heard flamenco music, doubtless knew the explorations of Spanish music by Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus and others,... > Read more
Song of Our Country (take nine)
MILES DAVIS: BITCHES BREW, CONSIDERED (1970): The sorcerer in his laboratory
4 Oct 2010 | 4 min read
Carlos Santana, who says rarely a day goes by when he doesn't listen to some Miles Davis, believes you only have to listen to the Davis' album Live at the Plugged Nickel -- recorded in December 65 at a Chicago club but not released until '68 -- to realise the trumpeter had exhausted standards such as Stella By Starlight and On Green Dolphin Street, and even his own classic So What (from... > Read more