Peter Frampton, who literally made his guitar sing via a talk box, has always best expressed himself with his instrument rather than his voice. That thinking fuels Frampton Forgets the Words, an album of instrumental covers of songs by artists who've inspired Frampton over the course of his career. The album's highlight is a rendition of George Harrison's "Isn't It a Pity?" and it comes with history: Harrison invited a 20-year-old Frampton to play acoustic guitar on his landmark 1970 solo album All Things Must Pass, which includes "Isn't a Pity?" Fifty years later, Frampton brings new emotional weight to one of the late Beatle's greatest compositions. - Rapp
The box set marking the 50th anniversary of George Harrison's landmark 1970 solo album All Things Must Pass chronicles the making of the record over six discs and more than 40 previously unreleased demos and outtakes. Harrison spent two consecutive days laying down demos for the record; on the second, he went totally solo with just an acoustic guitar. "Cosmic Empire" is one of the handful of songs that never made the album, a spirit-questing bit of revelry that pushes Harrison's voice into its upper register. Too bad we never got a full-band take on the song, but this breezy version is a one-man celebration. - Michael Gallucci
Peter Frampton Greatest Hits Full Album Zip
You could easily write off Dirty Honey as merely the sum of their very obvious influences: Zeppelin, Aerosmith, the Black Crowes, et al. But it's much more fun to hang up your critic's hat and lose yourself in the quartet's soaring hooks and killer chops, both of which are on full display in "California Dreamin'," the lead track off the band's self-titled debut album. Singer Marc LaBelle unleashes raspy, skyscraping vocal runs over guitarist John Notto's slinky riffs, while bassist Justin Smolian and drummer Corey Coverstone anchor the track with their meat-and-potatoes grooves. "It's so easy," LaBelle howls in the pre-choruses, but he's being modest: It takes years of practice to rock as effortlessly as Dirty Honey. - Rolli
But unlike most rock bands who divided pop history between before and after, Nirvana's impact was not immediate. Upon its release, Bleach was a modest indie rock success at 40,000 copies sold, and the album's low-budget legend-- it was recorded for a scant $600, footed by the band's temporary second guitarist, Jason Everman-- often overshadows the music within. At that point, Nirvana had yet to divest itself of its Pete Best: drummer Chad Channing, whose scrappy style wasn't fully suited to the band's growing propensity for crater-inducing stompers. (Three Bleach tracks-- "Floyd the Barber", "Paper Cuts", and "Downer"-- were actually helmed by Melvins thud-master Dale Crover, and you can really tell.) And the album's first single-- a cover of 1960s Dutch-popsters Shocking Blue's "Love Buzz"-- is more emblematic of the dementoid new wave that Nirvana would indulge in on their future B-sides than the metallic Pixies-punk that would turn them into stars.
Cobain's newly acquired, generational spokesmen duties didn't make him any more fond of engaging the audience with stage banter, ceding emcee duties to the jovial Novoselic during guitar changes. And even when playing to the biggest audience of their career, Nirvana blast through the 25-song setlist with a barrel-down, no-bullshit intensity that suggests it didn't matter if they were playing to 100 people or 100,000. And most pertinently, both concerts capture the band at crucial, between-album turning points: where the Pine Street Theater set shows a band burnishing its pop appeal, Live at Reading betrays Cobain's eagerness to tear it down, dispensing with the obvious Nevermind hits by the mid-set point, while reserving the encores for seething covers of 80s California punks Fang's suitably sardonic "The Money Will Roll Right In" and the Wipers' "D-7". In retrospect, the concert crystallizes the moment when Cobain stopped serving his servants and started serving himself, pointing the way to 1993's notoriously caustic In Utero.
Given its long-standing popularity as a bootleg, you can't help but wonder why Live at Reading wasn't officially released back in the mid-90s instead of the live compilation From the Muddy Banks of Wishkah; certainly, Reading makes for a more appropriate, electrified complement to the band's other career-defining performance, 1994's Unplugged in New York release. And for the sake of squeezing the entire set (save for "Love Buzz") on a single disc, the Reading CD excises pretty much all of the DVD's between-song interactions (most notably, the goof on Boston's "More Than a Feeling" that precedes the similarly riffed "Smells Like Teen Spirit") and key contextual interludes that reveal the tumult leading up to this triumphant performance (e.g., a heartfelt plea from Cobain to have the crowd shout a conciliatory "We love you Courtney" in the wake of her receiving the Yoko treatment from the British tabloids). But the CD's career-spanning tracklist-- touching on the best of Bleach, most of Nevermind, choice singles and B-sides ("Sliver", "Aneurysm"), three In Utero previews ("Tourette's", "Dumb", "All Apologies"), and the aforementioned covers-- actually makes it a far superior, more comprehensive introduction for Nirvana newbies than the band's 2002 greatest-hits compilation. Like the Who's Live at Leeds or Cheap Trick's At Budokan, it's an indispensible document of a legendary band at their most invincible.
It really showcases how broad the bands songwriting abilities were, and how easily they could mix styles, and have one song played so simply then the next so complex, without compromising their integrity. But what makes the album so special is that the songs are so full of life and played with such a real joyous energy. You can hear the smiles portrayed on the cover photos. You can hear the fun they are having, even on the darker tracks like massacre or suicide, where the guitars are working together to get their lines in perfect synch.
Carl Black: Classic collection of songs, never realised I knew so many Lizzy songs. Only thing stopping it getting full marks, I like my live albums a bit more raw. The odd cock up here and there, an isolated shout from a drunk crowd member, that sort of thing. This is very slick, maybe to slick a recording. But an amazing album. Might listen to it again on a minute. 2ff7e9595c
Comments