Revolution Blues by Neil Young
It sucks to be me, but I’ve just spent most of the last week at a work conference at a Thailand beach resort. This week’s selection is from Neil Young’s 1974 album On The Beach, while it’s also a commentary…
Aphoristical
Graham Fyfe has been writing this website since his late teens. Now in his forties, he's been obsessively listening to albums for years. He works as a web editor and plays the piano.
Music Quiz: Caps
Congratulations to Tony and KamerTunesBlog who both scored a perfect 20/20 last week. This week’s challenge is to identify the caps associated with different musical artists. I scored 15/20 – how many can you identify?
The Moody Blues Core Seven Albums: Ranked from Worst to Best
Between 1967 and 1972, Birmingham’s The Moody Blues released seven studio albums, commonly referred to as the core seven. They stayed in step with the times, transitioning from richly orchestrated psychedelic pop to more stripped-down albums in the 1970s. At…
Highwayman by Paddy McAloon and Jimmy Webb
One of my favourite musical discoveries of 2017 has been the solo catalogue of Jimmy Webb. While his 1970s albums are a little scattershot, there are plenty of examples of his harmonically complex but accessible songs. Along with his contemporaries…
Christmas Must Be Tonight by The Band
I spent my time at University working in a supermarket part time, and it only served to deepen my apathy to Christmas pop songs. The supermarket played music on a four hour cycle, with the songs in the same order…
Beatles Album Battle: Revolver vs Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
For all the great music that The Beatles made, my favourite two albums from the Liverpool quartet are their mid career peaks of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Both capture the band at a point where they’d…
Locked Inside by Janelle Monáe
I haven’t spent a lot of time with Janelle Monáe yet, but she’s impressive; able to enjoy popularity despite an uncompromising approach. While there are clear antecedents to her use of science fiction concepts in the R&B genre, with Parliament in…
Blog Dylan: Live in 1966
Bob Dylan’s a major musical figure who I haven’t covered on this blog yet. He has a huge discography, brimming with greatness – and I’ll tackle his 1960s albums and later highlights sometime. But I wanted to participate in blog dylan, a…
King Crimson: Five Best Albums
King Crimson aren’t so much a band as a series of bands, all featuring idiosyncratic guitarist Robert Fripp. With a demeanour that resembles a University professor more than a rock star, Fripp’s plotted an erratic course for his band. The…
Nature’s Best? 30 Great New Zealand Songs
Welcome back for the 4th and final episode of my run through of New Zealand’s 30 greatest pop songs – today we look at the final 6 songs. If you missed them, the first three installments are part 1, part…
