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album reviews

The Byrds

Farther Along Columbia

Farther Along is the Byrds' first completely self-produced LP, and exists as a kind of backlash to Terry Melcher's elaborate string and choir-laden production of Byrdmaniax. Farther Along was recorded within three months of Byrdmaniax, so eager was the band to make amends. Because of their closeness in time, their programmatic similarity is not surprising, though the sound has been considerably cleaned up. The personalities which are projected here are of the same cloth as those whi... | More »

Aretha Franklin

Young, Gifted And Black

The hype on the new Aretha Franklin album would have us believe that this is her best work since the Sixties, when a string of now-classic albums with Jerry Wexler and Arif Mardin established her as the definitive female soul singer. Even the press bio that accompanied Who's Zoomin' Who? claims the record has been "hailed by critics as one of the true landmark albums of [Franklin's] career." A critic not consulted in this prerelease poll is naturally a little skeptical, especia... | More »

March 2, 1972

Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne Asylum

It's not often that a single album is sufficient to place a new performer among the first rank of recording artists. Jackson Browne's long-awaited debut album chimes in its author with the resounding authority of an Astral Weeks, a Gasoline Alley, or an After the Gold Rush. Its awesome excellence causes one to wonder why, with Browne's reputation as an important songwriter established as far back as 1968, this album was so long in coming. Perhaps Browne acquired performing abil... | More »

Paul Simon

Paul Simon Columbia/Warner Bros.

Paul Simon's long and manicky struggle between his songs of endearing but forced whimsy and his confessions of unhappiness and loneliness is over, with the latter, in fully developed and radically different form, the victor. Simon's first solo album is also his least detached, most personal and painful piece of work thus far — this from a lyricist who has never shied away from pain as subject or theme. By contrast to the recent prototype for confessional work, John Lennon... | More »

Mott the Hoople

Brain Capers

Well, up till now Mott's been batting a respectable but unspectacular 333 — one line drive smash still climbing as it left the park (the first album), one disastrous bush-league strikeout (Mad Shadows); and a long fly ball the center-fielder caught up with some 400 feet from the plate (Wildlife). Maybe baseball images seem out-of-place with a British rock band yet there's a distinctly American orientation to this band that draws its inspiration (aside from its Kinksiness) from... | More »

February 17, 1972

The Jackson 5

Greatest Hits

Greatest hits albums usually lack focus. Time after time, for some obvious reasons, andsome mysterious ones, the essence and real greatness of the group or individual artist eludesattempts at collections. The Jackson Five, one of Motown's most commercially successful groups,suffers dramatically from this process. On this package the limitations of the group — mainly theslickness and vapidity of some their AM material, and the immaturity and shrillness of Michael'svoice —... | More »

Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt

Linda Ronstadt has run through three different producers with her last three albums, and it's easy to see why she wears them out so fast. Of the three, not one of them has had much luck with the considerable job of imposing any direction or discipline on Linda's seemingly boundless raw energy. She has yet to find someone who can shape up a whole album to match the best of her individual performances on isolated cuts. Hand Sown ... Home Grown was the roughest, loudest, loosest and m... | More »

Quicksilver Messenger Service

Quicksilver

Quicksilver is Dino Valenti's album. He wrote all the songs but two (by drummer Gary Duncan), he takes the vocals with that quavering breathy echo-laden whine which metamorphoses into an acceptable shout when he gets to screwing it on. But 'tis not on the basis of vocal or instrumental talent alone that Dino has assumed such a heavy role in the band's music. Above all, he is an enthusiastic practitioner of the Good Time Rock Star Ogle, a showman, a front man who steals the lime... | More »

Curtis Mayfield

Roots

Roots, Curtis Mayfield's third solo album, is a confused and confusing record. It's undoubtedly been influenced, both conceptually and technically, by Marvin Gaye's What's Going On? Gaye's record surprised a lot of people by its strong religious content, coming from someone who had previously recorded only love songs. Curtis, on the other hand, wrote and sang, with the Impressions, many religious and quasi-religious songs like "People Get Ready" and "Keep On Pushing."... | More »

February 3, 1972

Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt's debut album features an unusual collection of songs performed by an unusual assortment of musicians. And Bonnie is something out of the ordinary herself. She has been traveling the blues-festival circuit since 1968, playing the Boston-New York-Philadelphia folk run, since 1970. Now she has done something unusual with her first Warners album. In August, Bonnie rented a fishing camp on a Minnesota island, solicited the production services of Willie Murphy, the musical talen... | More »

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Song Stories

“Youth Knows No Pain”

Lykke Li | 2011

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”

More Song Stories entries »