What Are You Listening To?

[Dennie]

Today's work truck music....

Blood On The Tracks -- CD

Bob Dylan

1975/2004 Columbia Records

Amazon.com

Inevitably, when critics praise a new Dylan album, they label it the "best since Blood on the Tracks," and with good reason. Inspired by a crumbled marriage, and recorded after a tour with the Band had apparently re-ignited his creativity, Blood is among Dylan's masterpieces. The album's epic songs are well known, but its real high points are the shorter numbers--"You're a Big Girl Now," the flawless blues "Meet Me in the Morning," and the sweetly devastating "Buckets of Rain." These are songs of "images and distorted facts," each expressed through tangled points of view, and all of them blue. --David Cantwell
Side one

"Tangled Up in Blue" – 5:42 (Sound 80 Studio - Minneapolis, MN - 12/30/74)
"Simple Twist of Fate" – 4:19 (A & R Studios - New York, NY - 9/19/74)
"You're a Big Girl Now" – 4:36 (Sound 80 Studio - Minneapolis, MN - 12/27/74)
"Idiot Wind" – 7:48 (Sound 80 Studio - Minneapolis, MN - 12/27/74)
"You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" – 2:55 (A & R Studios - New York, NY - 9/17/74)

Side two

"Meet Me in the Morning" – 4:22 (A & R Studios - New York, NY - 9/16/74)
"Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" – 8:51 (Sound 80 Studio - Minneapolis,MN - 12/30/74)
"If You See Her, Say Hello" – 4:49 (Sound 80 Studio - Minneapolis, MN - 12/30/74)
"Shelter from the Storm" – 5:02 (A & R Studios - New York, NY - 9/17/74)
"Buckets of Rain" – 3:22 (A & R Studios - New York, NY - 9/19/74)

 

[Dennie]

Small Change -- CD

Tom Waits

1976/1990 Asylum Records

Vintage Tom Waits, May 21, 2007
By Ozoner (Murfreesboro, TN USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Small Change (Audio CD)

A little scat, a little be-bop, a little blues--but all Tom Waits. For fans of the singer's more recent works, this CD will take them back to the strip clubs and night life described in his earlier songs. It took me a while to get acclimated to this album, but now I like it just fine.

Side One
No. Title Length
1. "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)" 6:39
2. "Step Right Up" 5:43
3. "Jitterbug Boy (Sharing a Curbstone with Chuck E. Weiss, Robert Marchese, Paul Body and The Mug and Artie)" 3:44
4. "I Wish I Was in New Orleans (In the Ninth Ward)" 4:53
5. "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) (an Evening with Pete King)" 3:40

Side Two
No. Title Length
1. "Invitation to the Blues" 5:24
2. "Pasties and a G-String (At the Two O'Clock Club)" 2:32
3. "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart (In Lowell)" 4:50
4. "The One That Got Away" 4:07
5. "Small Change (Got Rained on with His Own .38)" 5:07
6. "I Can't Wait to Get Off Work (And See My Baby on Montgomery Avenue)"

 

[Dennie]

Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell -- CD

Meatloaf

1993 MCA Records

Amazon.com

At a certain point, bad taste and bombast becomes so excessive and so grandiose that they're no longer an easily dismissed irritation but an astonishing monument to the warped imagination. Such a monument is Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, the long-delayed sequel to 1977's Bat Out of Hell. Once again songwriter/producer Jim Steinman has isolated high-school parking-lot aphorisms and inflated them to Wagner-on-Broadway proportions, casting Mr. Loaf as a heavy-metal Ezio Pinza. Typical of the album's strategy is its big hit single, "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)." Steinman piles on the guitars, drums, synthesizers, and choral voices as if he were Phil Spector producing Kiss playing the Who songbook. The rest of the album tackles the themes of teenage lust, frustration, and rock & roll fantasies in similar fashion. It's somehow beside the point to complain about the puerile lyrics, the leaden rhythms, the derivative melodies, the histrionic vocals, or the overblown arrangements. Steinman knows how to push his audience's buttons, and with Meat Loaf's help, he hits those buttons with a sledgehammer. --Geoffrey Himes

1. "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" (Duet with Lorraine Crosby) 12:00
2. "Life Is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back" 8:00
3. "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" 5:50
4. "It Just Won't Quit" 7:21
5. "Out of the Frying Pan (And into the Fire)" 7:24
6. "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer than They Are" 10:15
7. "Wasted Youth" (Monologue by Steinman) 2:41
8. "Everything Louder than Everything Else" 7:59
9. "Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go To Dennie's House)" 6:53
10. "Back Into Hell" (Instrumental) 2:46
11. "Lost Boys and Golden Girls" 4:29

 

[Dennie]

Greatest Hits -- CD

Simply Red

1996 East/West Records (Import)

Do The Right Thing., March 21, 2000
By Jason Stein (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)


This review is from: Simply Red - Greatest Hits (Audio CD)

Unfortunately, Simply Red only had a couple of hits in America, namely "Holding Back The Years", "Money's Too Tight To Mention" and "If You Don't Know Me By Now." However, as this fantastic compilation attests, they are much more than just three hits. This greatest hits package has everything a casual fan would want. At 15 tracks it's well worth the money. Plus, no one can sing like Hucknall can. Pure white soul, and great music that already sounds classic. This is a must have for any rock collector.

"Holding Back The Years" (Mick Hucknall/Neil Moss) - 4:12
"Money's Too Tight To Mention" (John Valentine/William Valentine) - 4:29
"The Right Thing" (Hucknall) - 4:22
"It's Only Love" (Jimmy Cameron/Vella Cameron) - 3:52
"A New Flame" (Hucknall) - 3:58
"You've Got It" (Hucknall/Lamont Dozier) - 3:58
"If You Don't Know Me By Now" (Kenny Gamble/Leon Huff) - 3:26
"Stars" (Hucknall) - 4:08
"Something Got Me Started" (Hucknall/Fritz McIntyre) - 4:00
"Thrill Me" (Hucknall/McIntyre) - 5:04
"Your Mirror" (Hucknall) - 4:00
"For Your Babies" (Hucknall) - 4:18
"So Beautiful" (Hucknall) - 5:00
"Angel" (Carolyn Franklin/Sonny Saunders) - 4:01
"Fairground" (Hucknall) - 4:27

10351

 

[Rope]

Rope

 

[Dennie]

Rope

That a Baby! :handgestures-thumbup: I've been thinking about getting it, but have been able to hold off.... So far!


Dennie

 

[Rope]

Dennie -

I'm in the process of listening right now, it's vintage Cars, that's for certain. And yes, Ric Ocasek/Vocals, Guitar, and Keyboards.

Rope

 

[Rope]

Dennie -

I'm in the process of listening right now, it's vintage Cars, that's for certain. And yes, Ric Ocasek/Vocals, Guitar, and Keyboards.

Rope

I'd buy it again tomorrow!

Rope

 

[heeman]

Side A
1."The Journey"/"Recollection" – 21:20
Side B
1."The Battle"/"The Forest" – 18:57


and......

1.A Vision (2:34)
2.The Return Overture (2:39)
3.Mother Earth (3:48)
1.The Shadow of June
2.The Gallery
3.The Avenue of Prismed Light
4.The Earthquake
4.Buried Alive (Ozzy Osbourne vocal) (6:01)
5.The Enigma (1:18)
6.Is Anybody There? (Bonnie Tyler vocal) (6:35)
7.The Ravine (0:49)
8.The Dance of a Thousand Lights (5:41)
9.The Shepherd (2:01)
10.Mr. Slow (Tony Mitchell vocal) (3:47)
11.Bridge of Time (1:12)
12.Never is a Long, Long Time (Trevor Rabin vocal and guitar) (5:19)
13.Tales from the Lidenbrook Sea (2:57)
1.River of Hope
2.Hunter and Hunted
3.Fight for Life
14.The Kill (5:23)
15.Timeless History (1:10)
16.Still Waters Run Deep (Justin Hayward vocal) (5:21)
17.Time Within Time (2:39)
1.The Ebbing Tide
2.The Electric Storm
18.Ride of Your Life (Katrina Leskanich vocal) (6:01)
19.Floating (1:59)
1.Globes of Fire
2.Cascades of Fear
20.Floodflames (2:00)
21.The Volcano (2:10)
1.Tongues of Fire
2.The Blue Mountains
22.The End of the Return (5:23)

 

[Dennie]

Today's work truck music....

Dire Straits -- CD

Dire Straits

1978/1990 Warner Bros. Records

Amazon.com

By the mid-'80s Dire Straits were a platinum band dismissed in their native England as safe, yuppie rockers, yet the original quartet's lean, guitar-driven music struggled to find a label home when first recorded in 1978. Mark Knopfler offers craggy vocals, literate blues-based songs, and sinuous, virtuosic guitar work. He melds keening solo lines and rapidly picked fills and dodges the synth washes and postpunk power chords of then-competing new wavers; he relies on atmosphere, character, and pure musicianship intead of heavy irony or pop fashion. "Sultans of Swing," codifies this stance, a galloping paean to aging jazz musicians playing for the sheer love of the music. This became a major hit and has endured as a radio classic. The album itself has proven equally sturdy thanks to cinematic imagery and the tightly wound arrangements of "Down to the Waterline," "Six Blade Knife," and "Water of Love." --Sam Sutherland

All songs written by Mark Knopfler.

"Down to the Waterline" – 3:55
"Water of Love" – 5:23
"Setting Me Up" – 3:18
"Six Blade Knife" – 4:10
"Southbound Again" – 2:58
"Sultans of Swing" – 5:47
"In the Gallery" – 6:16
"Wild West End" – 4:42
"Lions" – 5:05

 

[Dennie]

Two Men With The Blues

Willie Nelson - Wynton Marsalis

2008 Blue Note Records

Two Men with the Blues is no more a jazz album than a blues album. It's neither jazz returning home, nor blues wandering out. What Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis have created is a compilation of jump-blues standards with arrangements that compliment both genres. While most of the album is careful not to take itself too seriously, there are a few tracks that seem to plod on for ages. The live set kicks off with the upbeat "Bright Lights, Big City," on which Marsalis' horn is crisp and full. "Ain't Nobody's Business" and "Basin Street Blues" are arranged slower than better known versions but still fit the album's context. Nelson and Marsalis's take on "Stardust" comes off as a bit too "Sinatra" for Nelson's thin vocal, while "Georgia on My Mind" just doesn't work at all. Still, the things that work, work well. "Night Life" and "Rainy Day Blues" are particular stand-outs, and "Caldonia" is a faithful homage to the Louis Jordan original--minus Jordan's screaming punch line, of course. The album ends riding high on the last song, "That's All," with its straight-out-of-a-New-Orleans-Baptist-church feel. Both Nelson and Marsalis are notorious for collaborating with other artists. Therefore, it seems only natural that they've found themselves on a project together. Overall, this set is well worth the wait. --Eric C.P. Martin

1. "Bright Lights Big City" – 5:20
2. "Night Life" – 5:44
3. "Caldonia" – 3:25
4. "Stardust" – 5:08
5. "Basin Street Blues" – 4:56
6. "Georgia On My Mind" – 4:40
7. "Rainy Day Blues" – 5:43
8. "My Bucket's Got a Hole In It" (Williams) – 4:56
9. "Ain't Nobody's Business" – 7:27
10. "That's All" (Merle Travis) – 6:08


* Willie Nelson – vocals and guitar
* Wynton Marsalis – trumpet and vocals
* Mickey Raphael – harmonica
* Walter Blanding – saxophone
* Dan Nimmer – piano
* Carlos Henriquez – bass
* Ali Jackson – drums

 

[Dennie]

Dennie -

I'm in the process of listening right now, it's vintage Cars, that's for certain. And yes, Ric Ocasek/Vocals, Guitar, and Keyboards.

Rope

I'd buy it again tomorrow!

Rope

Thanks for the review Rope, I've added it to my wish-list!


Dennie

 

[Dennie]

OMG! I can't believe you guys are on page 100 already.

Wow, nice job! :bow-blue:

I also want to thank each and every one of you who've posted in this thread! I will try to post here more often, as it is a great way to find "new to me" music!


Dennie :music-listening:

 

[Dennie]

Pulp Fiction Soundtrack -- 180 gram LP

Various Artists

2008 MCA Records

Amazon.com

Dick Dale's surf-guitar provided the memorable title theme ("Misirlou"), for Quentin Tarantino's 1994 smash, and although that sound runs throughout the soundtrack (along with bits and pieces of dialog from the movie), this is a pretty eclectic bunch of really terrific songs. I don't know how it all manages to hang together, but it does (you might say the same for the interwoven stories in the movie). Where else are you going to find Chuck Berry, Maria McKee, Al Green, The Statler Brothers, Kool & the Gang, Urge Overkill (singing a Neil Diamond ballad!), Ricky Nelson, Dusty Springfield, and the Tornadoes (among others) one album? McKee's beautiful "If Love is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)" is a standout, partly because it's less familiar. One of the few soundtracks of the '90s that went into the CD player and stayed there for weeks and months thereafter. --Jim Emerson

1. "Pumpkin and Honey Bunny (dialogue)/Misirlou" Quentin Tarantino/Fred Wise, Milton Leeds, S. K. Russell, Nicholas Roubanis Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer/Dick Dale & His Del-Tones 2:27
2. "Royale with Cheese (dialogue)" Tarantino Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta 1:42
3. "Jungle Boogie" Ronald Bell, Kool & the Gang Kool & the Gang 3:05
4. "Let's Stay Together" Al Green, Al Jackson, Jr., Willie Mitchell Al Green 3:15
5. "Bustin' Surfboards" Gerald Sanders, Jesse Sanders, Norman Sanders, Leonard Delaney The Tornadoes 2:26
6. "Lonesome Town" Baker Knight Ricky Nelson 2:13
7. "Son of a Preacher Man" John Hurley, Ronnie Wilkins Dusty Springfield 2:25
8. "Zed's Dead, Baby (dialogue)/Bullwinkle Part II" Tarantino/Dennis Rose, Ernest Furrow Maria de Medeiros, Bruce Willis/The Centurions 2:39
9. "Jackrabbit Slim's Twist Contest (dialogue)/You Never Can Tell" Tarantino/Chuck Berry Jerome Patrick Hoban, Uma Thurman/Chuck Berry 3:12
10. "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" Neil Diamond Urge Overkill 3:09
11. "If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)" Maria McKee Maria McKee 4:55
12. "Bring Out the Gimp (dialogue)/Comanche" Tarantino/Robert Hafner (sax solo by James Gordon) Peter Greene, Duane Whitaker/The Revels 2:10
13. "Flowers on the Wall" Lewis C. Dewitt The Statler Brothers 2:23
14. "Personality Goes a Long Way (dialogue)" Tarantino Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta 1:00
15. "Surf Rider" Bob Bogle, Nole "Nokie" Edwards, Don Wilson The Lively Ones 3:18
16. "Ezekiel 25:17 (dialogue)" Tarantino Samuel L. Jackson 0:51

10380

 

[Dennie]

Aja

Steely Dan

1977 ABC Records

Amazon.com

History gives Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen the last, hearty laugh on this, the crown jewel in their remarkable canon of '70s Mensa pop. Sneaking onto the charts a half-decade earlier with sinuous, jazz-inflected "rock," the dysfunctional duo's acerbic, anti-heroic visions had been critically lauded for their band identity and killer guitar riffs, then promptly challenged when the two songwriters retired from the road, dissolved any formal band lineup, and used the studio as laboratory. Aja carried the added indignity of its increased focus on sophisticated jazz models and musicianship, which carried the Dan's ambitions even further in terms of suave harmonies, intricate song structures, and brilliant playing. Time has proven them wiser than their rock crit detractors: These seven songs abound in knotty plots, sneaky imagery, and drop-dead brilliant performances from a blue chip studio repertory studded with first-call jazz players epitomized by Wayne Shorter's towering solo on the title song. From the hard-boiled jazz romance of "Deacon Blues" to the twisted Homeric vamp of "Home at Last," the veiled but ominous swing of "Peg" to the sci-fi eroticism of "Josie," Aja is a modern pop classic and the coolest fusion record no one ever thought to lump in that category. --Sam Sutherland

All songs written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.

Side one

"Black Cow" – 5:10
"Aja" – 7:57
"Deacon Blues" – 7:37

Side two

"Peg" – 3:57
"Home at Last" – 5:34
"I Got the News" – 5:06
"Josie" – 4:33

 

[Dennie]

Gaucho 180 gram LP

Steely Dan

1980/2008 MCA Records

Amazon.com

The multiplatinum success of Aja made Steely Dan, the musical conceit of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, a household name. But that prosperity came bundled with a fateful triple-whammy for rock's dyspeptic duo: unrealistic commercial expectations, a critical backlash spawned by punk's nascent mewling, and the long-simmering meltdown of their artistic partnership. But the cool, perfect sheen of 1980's Gaucho tipped its hand to none of it. Ironically, those fashion victims who sniffed up their sleeves at Don and Walt's decadence-tinged Me Decade manifesto couldn't have had a clue that just maybe Gaucho's typically oblique protagonists had uncomfortably blurred from the third-person to the first this time 'round. At least that's what Becker and Fagen hint at in their smart-assed notes to this digitally remastered, definitive edition (all original artwork and printed lyrics restored) of the final album before their 20-year hiatus. Pristine and sonically polished (three years and seven studios worth), time has served Gaucho well. Even its sense of laconic detachment now seems but a logical bridge to the two-decade removed Dan of Two Against Nature. To their credit, Becker and Fagen didn't trash the first half of Steely Dan's legacy on Gaucho, they simply burnished it to oblivion. -Jerry McCulley

All songs written by Becker and Fagen, except where noted
Side one

"Babylon Sisters" – 5:49
"Hey Nineteen" – 5:06
"Glamour Profession" – 7:28

Side two

"Gaucho" (Becker, Fagen, Keith Jarrett) – 5:30
"Time Out of Mind" – 4:11
"My Rival" – 4:30
"Third World Man" – 5:18

 

[Rope]

Rope

 

[Dennie]

The Nightfly

Donald Fagen

1982 Warner Bros. Records

Donald Fagen's 1982 solo debut extends the sleek, smart pop craft of his work with Steely Dan into the realm of the concept album, taking the Dan's penchant for intricate plotting, evocative narrative voices, and allusive imagery to the logical next step. Fagen's connective thread is futurist nostalgia for the "New Frontier" as anticipated from the prosperous vantage point of late-'50s America. He romanticizes a brave new world of technology in the sultry diorama of "I.G.Y.," celebrating the coming glories of the Atomic Age. He then filters that view through his own suburban adolescence--a would-be seduction in a fallout shelter, the siren song of a graveyard-shift jazz DJ, a not-quite-hard-boiled noir adventure ("The Goodbye Look") that borrows its title from an early '60s Ross MacDonald mystery. Song for song, the set's a stunner and stands apart from Steely Dan thanks to a unique, poignant romanticism embodied in Fagen's yearning "Maxine" and a creamy update of Dion & the Belmonts' "Ruby Baby." --Sam Sutherland

"I.G.Y." – 6:05
"Green Flower Street" – 3:40
"Ruby Baby" (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller), Arranged by Donald Fagen – 5:38
"Maxine" – 3:50
"New Frontier" – 6:23
"The Nightfly" – 5:45
"The Goodbye Look" – 4:47
"Walk Between Raindrops" – 2:38

 

[Dennie]

My last one for the evening...

Drag -- CD

kd lang

1997 Warner Bros. Records

Amazon.com

Sensual, seductive, and above all smoky, the latest from k.d. lang is a collection of a dozen tunes that all have some connection to smoking--usually in the romantic, post-coital sense--done up in a lush, orchestrated fashion. Some of these tunes are standards, such as "Smoke Dreams" and "My Last Cigarette," while others are just plain strange selections given some of the oddest readings imaginable. Case in point: the cover of Steve Miller's "The Joker." lang's voice is an incredible instrument, and it's a treat to hear her vamping. But you have to wonder what she's up to, especially because she seems to just say no to tobacco herself, --Jim Derogatis

"Don't Smoke in Bed" (Willard Robison) – 3:22
"The Air That I Breathe" (Albert Hammond, Mike Hazelwood) – 5:58
"Smoke Dreams" (John Klenner, Lloyd Shaffer, Ted Steele) – 3:49
"My Last Cigarette" (Gary Clark, Boo Hewerdine, Neill MacColl) – 4:09
"The Joker" (Eddie Curtis, Ahmet Ertegün, Steve Miller) – 4:44
"Theme from the Valley of the Dolls" (Dory Langdon, Andre Previn) – 3:02
"Your Smoke Screen" (David Barbe) – 2:29
"My Old Addiction" (David Wilcox) – 6:39
"Till the Heart Caves In" (T-Bone Burnett, Bob Neuwirth, Roy Orbison) – 3:30
"Smoke Rings" (Gene Gifford, Ned Washington) – 3:36
"Hain't It Funny" (Jane Siberry) – 6:23
"Love Is Like a Cigarette" (Jerome Jerome, Walter Kent, Richard Byron) – 4:45

 

[Botch]

You're killing me here Dennie; three Dan/Fagen releases, and then Drag, and I'm stuck down here in Tooele with a damn tv.

Well, I go home this afternoon, have tomorrow off, and come back down here for the weekend, will have to get my fix tomorrow. bscene-drinkingcheers: