Quadrophenia (The Who) – Album Review (Part 2)

Check the first part of this review here.

Quadrophenia is a concept album that spans two records and which has 17 songs. It tells the story of a young mod named Jimmy who faces an existential dilemma, aggravated by the fact that he has four different and conflicting personalities, and each one of these reflects the personality of a member of The Who: a fighter, a romantic, a lunatic and a spiritual seeker. That is why there are four songs which are labeled as a member of The Who’s individual theme.

The story is not cohesive enough as it stands here – the movie was to be cohesive and to make sense, but that was to come much later on. In any case, Pete has come up with an emotional setting that is enough to make for any narrative deficiency. The Who are one of the best exponents of music that is internalized and felt, and Quadrophenia does not fail to deliver in that sense.

We get to see Jimmy as he his maturing, and that stands as an excellent analogy of the transition of music from the idealistic ’60s to the somehow starker ’70s. The Who were one of the longest-standing bands at that point, and they had not only the insight but also the right to articulate such issues. Continue reading

Quadrophenia (The Who) – Album Review (Part 1)

The Cover Of The Album

The Cover Of The Album

I consider Quadrophenia the biggest cultural contribution The Who ever made. That is a bold statement if we take into account that they also sang “My Generation” and recorded the defining album “Who’s Next“, adding new melodic resources to the world of music as a whole.

When I say that Quadrophenia was (and is) a significant cultural contribution, I take into account the fact that nobody else had taken the time to look back at the mod days and present them in such a representative light. Mod was the one and only aspect of British life in the ’60s that was not absorbed by America. Everything else was. Without Quadrophenia, that knowledge would have been somehow lost. And what was all the more remarkable was that when the album was originally issued the Who’s cohorts were adopting a lyrical posture that was to end up in total disconnection, singing about the dark side of the moon and stairways to heaven. That is, music would begin to lose its immediate link with those that bought it, and that disconnection would end a couple of years down the line in the punk revolution that placed both sides on an equal level. Continue reading

100 Posts!

This week MusicKO became 100 posts old, and to commemorate it I am reviewing my favorite album ever: Quadrophenia, by The Who.

I would like to thank all the people who visit MusicKO regularly and all those who have started linking back to it.

If there is anything that you would like me to cover or a feature you would like to see please let me know in the comments!

See you around!

Emilio

Mummer (XTC) – Album Review (Part 2)

Part 1 is found here. It deals with the songs on the original LP.

Like every other XTC album, this was to be reissued in the ’90s. Every single CD comes with additional tracks, and I must tell you that the booklets are uniformly subpar. Upon release, Mummer was quickly (and deservedly) hailed as the XTC album that was bonus-tracked the best.

Six songs have been added. Two are instrumentals from the Homo Safari series, and while they are the weak links they do work. If there is an album where you could throw anything into the mix and get away with it, that is Mummer. The songs would have stood as a sore thumb anywhere else.

The four actual songs that have been added, though, would have worked here, there and everywhere. But in the context of Mummer, they work like a dream. You have two incredibly uplifting numbers in the shape of “Jump” and “Gold”, whereas “Toys” is one of Andy’s most whimsical tunes of the period, but it is absolutely lovable because (unlike the Mummer tracks) he stays more true to the sound that always characterized XTC’s most soaring pop moments. Continue reading

Mummer (XTC) – Album Review (Part 1)

The Cover That Was Accepted By The Record Company. A Cover With The Band In Mummer Regalia Was Rejected.

The Cover That Was Accepted By The Record Company. A Cover With The Band In Mummer Regalia Was Rejected.

XTC’s music is characterized by marked twists and turns, both in terms of melody and lyrics. As a new listener of the band, I always knew that any of their albums would be an experience akin to a mystery to be elucidated, and I was ready for anything. I wasn’t, however, ready for Mummer. And the fact that it was one of the last XTC albums I bought makes that all the more significant.

As you probably know, this was the first album to be released after Andy’s nervous breakdown and his decision that the band was to become a studio entity from that point onwards. It was also the first album without Terry – he left the band and moved to Australia with girlfriend Donna (and son Kai), and worked there as a drummer for some time before leaving music behind for good. Also, the ties with manager Ian Reid were to become severed and lead to an exhausting litigation shortly. Continue reading

RockMy Events – Putting Gigs & Events On The Map

RockMyEvents

Name: RockMy Events

URL: http://www.rockmyevents.com

Traditionally, it was always possible to miss on this or the other artist when he or she came to town, even if you were a big fan of music in general. And I am talking about “established” artists. Now, if we were to move into Indie music it was always even harder to know what was going on unless you had some kind of direct connection with the band, or were in their (very) close geographical vicinity.

That is a thing of the past. Now things are far, far removed from that context. I dare say we have gone from one extreme to the other, as services like Twitter ensure that we have access to so much information that picking out which gig to attend can take longer than it took Pete Townshend to present “Lifehouse” to the world as he had originally intended it. Continue reading

Kanye West Interrupted Taylor Swift And The Social Web Went Off

Kanye West’s interruption of Taylor’s Swift acceptance speech is one of the viral pieces of content right now. MTV has managed to keep it off YouTube, but a relevant search produces enough remixes and video reactions to keep you watching for hours on end. One of the finest:

This is not the first time Kanye’s big mouth blazes off. The remark of him that caused the biggest controversy was the one about President Bush in the aftermath of Katrina:

That video alone has had over 6 million views ever since it was posted online. Note the expression of co-host Mike Myers at the end! Continue reading

Give’em Enough Rope (The Clash) – Album Review

Give'em Enough Rope's Cover

Give'em Enough Rope's Cover

It is amazing how wrong both the critics and the public can perceive an album when it is first released. The Clash’s second record is a case in point. The album was released in 1978, and it was largely panned. Most of the criticisms I have read focus on the producer that was chosen, a Sandy Pearlman (famous for his work with harder-rocking outfits). The truth is that the album is the most natural evolution of the sound The Clash had presented on their first offering you could ever picture.

In actuality, it is hard to imagine how an album that starts up with “Safe European Home” could cause a bad impression on the listener. The song is one of their best style explorations, melding a call-and-response lyric with a bestial wall of riffage that eventually gives way to a reggae excursion. You know what? That song alone justifies buying the album, especially since it is omitted on “best of” packages. The album as a whole has never got the recognition it deserves. In fact, when the “From Here To Eternity” live CD was issued in 1999, not a single song from “Give’em Enough Rope” was included. Not even “Tommy Gun” (the third track here) was featured. That song showcases that the political vision of the band was advancing both at a steady rhythm and in a focused way. It was Strummer’s homage to mercenaries, and a study on violent types and their motivations. The drums emulate a machine gun all the way through, and the sudden ending makes it all feel as if a grenade had been lodged into the brain of the listener through the song, only to explode at the song’s conclusion. Continue reading

MinimumNoise – Crowdsourcing Music Production

MinimumNoise

Name: Minimum Noise

URL: http://www.minimumnoise.com

This site defines itself as a music marketplace that lets people crowdsource music production on the Net. The way it works is really simple: you just create a project and explain how much you are willing to pay for it. Once you have done so, producers can access your project’s page and take part of it by uploading audio clips for you to weigh up. When you come across one that fits what you had originally envisioned, it is a mere matter of transferring the money and receiving the full audio.

When creating your project, you can (and must) include a couple of reference files for the community of producers to easily realize what it is you are after. That is only suitable – it is almost impossible to transmit music verbally, and a short clip is certain to transmit the concept 100 % accurately and in no time at all. Continue reading