This might be fun. Take your fave band and pick an almum /9assumung they have done more than one) and review. Then anybody who has a listen can comment. Most major bands albums are on the that well known site - say no more.
My favourite band: The Rolling Stones.
Album: Between the Buttons (1967)
In no way is this the Stones best album. Most including me agree that the Stones produced four genuine classic albums on the bounce - Beggers banquet, Let it bleed, Sticky fingers and Exile on main street - Between the buttons in not one of these. What it is and what fascinates me about it is that it's a bridge between what the Stones were and what they became. I do realise that the psychedelic masterpiece/disaster Satanic Majesties sit's between the two but this anomaly is one on it's own and simply doesn't fit so will be ignored.
Slowly but surely the Stones developed from a live covers band to one that could write hit singles. However unlike the Beatles they had up to this point only managed one self penned album, the patchy and still to blues dependant "Aftermath". BTB was a real step forward. Still not Beatles class but containing a full set of good songs with strong pop melodies. Jagger's lyrics were getting sharper though his mysogany is way to strong even for the day. I don't know which girl upset him but they did a bang up job - this aside it's still pretty good.
What I like about it is that they are almost there but not quite. Some of it's a bit cheesy and full of teenage angst. The playing sharp but fairly simplistic - though Brain Jones ability to get a pleasant noise from almost any instrument is still quite breathtaking. Of course this is the last spurt of this mans creativity before he chose to destroy himself. Brain was not as some suggest the real talent in the band - that was clearly Jagger and especially Richards. However he did bring a breadth of ingenuity and imagination that the Stones never really had afterwards.
The other thing that appeals to me is that at this moment the band members are all still fairly normal. The real debauchery and sleaze that made them the iconic band they are was yet to really take hold. The Stones place in music history is based on some great pop songs, Satisfaction etc but mainly on what happened between 1968 to 1972. It is that Stones era that most recall and history will most remember. It is certainly during that point that the Stones faded out of the real world to inhabit a world created exclusively by themselves for themselves. Musically it was fantastic and culturally significant but it did leave reality and the common man behind.
When I was in my own Stones inspired band it was the BTB era that fascinated us. We could play like that, we could look like that, we could be like that. We could even write songs that sounded a bit like that. We couldn't get anywhere near the post 1968 Stones. It's certainly the last time they truly lived up to their tag as the ultimate garage band. They were accessible and every track on BTB is just that. Few if any are classic tracks but I bet they had great practice session playing them and had they played pub gigs they would have had most feet tapping. The whole feel of the albums takes you to the world of Carnaby street and you can imagine the Stones were still turning up for gigs in the back of a Bedford van (probably weren't but hey). They were still a bit like like me and my mates at this point though they had managed to get layed! Seriously though the heavy drugs and drinking was yet to really set in, sure we'd had the Mars bar incident etc but that was mainly press titillation. The images of decayed decadence real or imagined were yet to come. For now they were just ordinary blokes who had got famous and were living the dream whilst it lasted and were far more likely to be found sipping tea at the Blue Bore Services than downing Jack Daniels. Hope you get my point.
Give it a whirl, at first you'll think it sound a bit tinny which it does as it was recorded in Mono to start with and slightly amateurish in parts, then if you persist you won't get the tunes out of your head and will want to wear some loon pants then after a week like all great pop records you'll be bored put the CD away for 20 years like I did before enjoying it again, Wasn't music so much more simple then. It's not a classic but it's fun, which is something not really associated with this band.
Cheers and look forward to reading other peoples reviews on their fave albums if they have the time.
