CD Odyssey Disc 1963: Ted Nugent

Welcome back to the CD Odyssey where I randomly select and review every album in my collection. Since we’re not done yet, let’s sail on to the next port of call.

Disc 1963 is…Weekend Warriors

Artist: Ted Nugent

Year of Release: 1978

What’s up with the Cover? You’ve heard of the key-tar? The double-necked guitar where one neck is a bass? Well Ted does this one better with a guitar that doubles as a shotgun.

Apparently the ‘gun-tar’ is fired when Ted plays a particularly killer riff, as Ted demonstrates here. Any concert where this thing gets played probably needs an extra rider on the insurance.

How I Came To Know It: This was another of the “Ross Records” collection that I got from my buddy Ross when he was divesting himself of CDs. I was already a fan of Nugent so this was an easy selection. Thanks again, Ross!

How It Stacks Up: I have four Ted Nugent albums, two with the Amboy Dukes and two solo. I like them all, but competition is fierce and “Weekend Warriors” lands in fourth – but a respectable fourth.

Ratings: 3 stars

The world can sometimes be a confusing place but there is one thing you can count on: put an electric guitar in the hands of Ted Nugent and magic happens. On his fourth solo record since parting ways with the Amboy Dukes, Nugent once again displays his mastery on the axe.

That is the main thing that draws most people to a Ted Nugent record, and on “Weekend Warriors” I was not disappointed. The style is solidly hard rock, with heavy influences of rock’s next-door neighbour, the blues.

The blues vibes on “Weekend Warrior” are strongest on “One Woman” and manifest in the chord progression and classic blues riffs. However, the way the song is played is crunch-forward with a metallic aftertaste that lets you know that hard rock is the driver on this record, even if blues helps with the initial recipe.

I’m a big fan of the epic sonic explorations on Nugent’s early work with the Amboy Dukes, and while there is less of that on this record, there is still plenty to get behind. The best song for those who also love that early sprawl is “Venom Soup”. The album’s longest song by well over a minute and a half, “Venom Soup” is a throwback to that earlier sound. It takes a little time to get going but once it does you are rewarded with a deep soak in Nugent’s guitar brilliance.

To varying degrees, Nugent’s guitar work is a star on every song on the record, but on the majority of tracks the vocals are handled by bandmate Charlie Huhn. Huhn takes singing duties on six of the ten tracks, but his tone and Nugent’s are so similar that I didn’t really notice who was on the mic and had to look it up several times to confirm. If anything, Huhn’s voice is the stronger of the two, but Ted’s got that patented Nugent grime to it which lets you forgive a lot.

My favourite of the Nugent-led tunes is “Good Friends and a Bottle of Wine” which is a classic Nugent song in the “party on” vibe that his music inspires. The solo work in “Good Friends…” sits back a bit in the mix compared to some tracks, but when it hits it grabs your attention and does not let you up for air.

It is hard to describe what makes Nugent’s guitar solos so singular and impressive. So many other guitarists in the hard rock/metal world will fall into a fit of excess, showcasing how fast they can play or how “balls-out” they can sound. Nugent writes solos that serve the song’s underlying melody but that also take you on a journey through a different facet of that melody, just like a good solo should. Yes, he can play fast, but only when the moment calls for it, and he never sounds hurried.

I didn’t learn a lot about life, the universe, and everything while listening to “Weekend Warriors’ nor was there a plethora of new musical ideas to choose from. But that’s not what you come to a Ted Nugent album looking for. You come looking for songs about good times and bad times, played with virtuosity by one of rock and roll’s greatest.

On that front this record delivers and then some.

Best tracks: Venom Soup, Good Friends and a Bottle of Wine

CD Odyssey Disc 1938: Gang of Four

Welcome back to the CD Odyssey, where the luck of the draw brings us back to the late seventies.

Disc 1938 is… …entertainment!

Artist: Gang of Four

Year of Release: 1979

What’s up with the Cover? This cowboy looks like an untrustworthy creep, and the three panel “push in” effect doubles down on that feeling of foreboding.

Lest you think it is all a misunderstanding or a trick of the frame, Gang of Four has included subtitles that confirm beyond any shadow of a doubt that this cowboy is, in fact, a creep of the highest order.

How I Came To Know It: I read about this record on a “best albums” list on some music magazine site. I gave it a listen just to see what all the fuss was about and was hooked.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Gang of Four album (so far) so it can’t stack up.

Ratings: 5 stars

To describe Gang of Four’s album as “entertainment” would be accurate to the record’s title but would fall well short of just how revelatory an experience it is. Entertainment ain’t the half of it.

“entertainment!” is a record that transforms the raucous protest of punk rock into danceable party music, all while not losing an iota of edge. It is a leading edge record of post-punk. Maybe not the first ever but arguably the funkiest.

From the opening notes of “Ether” crashing around with a deliberate awkwardness, you know you are going to be treated to sounds that challenge your understanding of rhythm all while still making some of the grooviest beats this side of Motown.

I wanted to just go on about Dave Allen’s bass riffs, and I could write the whole review about just how awesome those are. The problem is that every member of the aptly named Gang of Four represents an equal part of what makes this record leap out at you. There are no weak spots. Hugo Burnham’s drums? Insistent and aggressive. Andy Gill’s guitar? Alternatively gritty as hell and then loaded with sway and snap a moment later.

The vocals (mostly Jon King, with Gill featured on plenty of tracks) are blurts of manic energy, filled with unpleasant truths, a restlessness that lies somewhere between the political musing of the Clash and the stoned “I’m bored” vibe of the Ramones. The refrain in “Glass” sums up the experience:

“I’m so restless (I’m bored as a cat)”

These lads are so cool they can make restless boredom a good time.

Best of all, the production keeps all four elements even in the mix, each equally loud and competing for your attention. The sound is stark, with plenty of space, creating a delightful assault coming from all levels and directions.

The music’s pace leans forward into the pocket with a New Wave urgency, but with the dismissive snarl of a revolutionary. “entertainment!” sits in the heart of its own culture, simultaneously celebrating, judging, and taking the piss. The effect creates a breathlessness, the music giving you no time to contemplate outside of the moment, even as the lyrics echo evocative observations through your near-term memory.

It was all so bright and new, and I could feel the record’s innovations echoing through modern artists. The angry observations combined with creative beats made me think of Sleaford Mods, and the apocalyptic Goth-adjacent vision of some tracks reminded me of HMLTD. It feels like you are sitting at the wellspring of half a dozen musical styles, all spewing out at a frantic pace.

The final track on the original record, “Anthrax” is the record’s least accessible, starting with 90 seconds of droning guitar feedback and then some soupy soundscapes. Two sets of lyrics compete out of synch, one sung and one spoken, but lining up in unison for a half-line at the end of every other bar. None of this should work, but it all does. All that weirdness and excess could devolve into self-congratulatory tripe, but instead it draws you in and makes you dance, think, and then dance again.

The only thing I didn’t love about this record is that mine is a CD reissue with a gratuitous amount of bonus tracks (eight, to be exact). These don’t add a lot, but neither are they terrible. If I hadn’t heard the greatness of the original record immediately preceding them, I’d be giving them 4 stars all on their own.

As it is, there is no amount of bonus content that can deny the original record’s greatness.

Best tracks: All the original tracks, and some of the bonus stuff ain’t half bad either (Armalite Rifle is a favourite)

CD Odyssey Disc 1927: Iggy Pop

Welcome to the weekend and another edition of the CD Odyssey. Today we have some post-punk from a time when most people were still doing regular punk.

Disc 1927 is…The Idiot

Artist: Iggy Pop

Year of Release: 1977

What’s up with the Cover? Mr. Pop himself, decked out in what appears to be a ladies blazer stands on a dark…beach? Desert?

Iggy is holding his hands in a very deliberate and peculiar way. I’m going to assume that it is semaphore for “idiot” and then not look it up, because its funner that way.

Yeah, I said funner. You can use funner in a sentence where you are randomly discussing idiots and semaphore. It is – quite literally – an idiot word.

How I Came To Know It: Welcome to the first edition of the “Ross Records”. A few weeks back my good friend Ross was parting with his (very excellent) CD collection and gave me dibs on picking through before he went commercial. I got about 25 albums that day, including discovering some very cool bands I had not previously known.

I also got this Iggy Pop record. Anyway, huge thanks to Ross.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Iggy Pop record, so it can’t stack up. I also have a Stooges record (Iggy’s band) but I’m making the call to keep that separate.

Ratings: 2 stars

The vast majority of the Ross Records are awesome additions to my collection. Sadly, “The Idiot” starts our journey in a more average fashion.

Iggy Pop’s first solo record shows the freedom of an artist out on his own, willing to do new things, but it also shows the self-indulgence that can happen when you don’t have other band members say, “that’s an OK groove, but let’s leave it off the record until we’ve workshopped it a bit.”

First the good news – Iggy Pop’s natural charisma survives the transition to a solo career just fine. He has one of those “everything I say is important” cult leader kind of voices, akin to Glenn Danzig or Patty Smith. These are the rock voices of a generation, able to compel you to wave a flag, or raise a fist, or storm a Bastille simply through the force of their tone and the presence behind it.

This quality is evident throughout the record, and on the band’s opening track, “Sister Midnight” I was hopeful for the future. Sure the song didn’t really go anywhere after establishing its groove, but the groove was a good one, and by the end I was fully ready to call Sister Midnight, despite lyrics indicating this would be a poor decision.

Another solid tune is the dramatic “Tiny Girls” which has Iggy’s vocals climbing into a vibrato and a bit more melodic structure than you might usually expect from a founding father of punk. There’s a saxophone at the end of the song, which is always a dangerous arrangement decision in rock and roll, but here it works.

The challenge with “The Idiot” is that most of the time the songs don’t achieve this level of interest. They start with a fairly cool groove, and a feel for dark streets and darker thoughts that will have you wanting to hear more, but then they don’t develop into anything. Iggy is content to let the songs be mood pieces, with a lot of repeated lyrics and repeated song structures, but absent the dynamic energy of punk. It is punk pushed under water and held there until it stops kicking.

This is irritating, because there are multiple occasions where things start out with great promise. “Nightclubbing” aims – and to a degree, captures – the hollowed-out world of going out to the clubs. There is a great start here, but it just walks along in the same moment, content to add strange bits of production (piano jangle here, strangled guitar solo there) rather than fully dig in.

Does “Nightclubbing” capture that numbing experience of being out too late, too drunk, and walking too far to find the impossible - a club with the perfect mix of cool vibe and short lineup to get in? Yes, it does, but it isn’t something I want to listen to. In the end it just fades away, an undeveloped melody that doesn’t know where to head next.

“Dum Dum Boys” is similarly tiresome. Great start, and Iggy’s vocals almost sustain the song all on their own, but at over seven minutes long, I was tired of hearing about it long before Iggy was tired of telling me.

The album features an early version of “China Girl” six years before David Bowie would release it on “Let’s Dance”. Iggy Pop cowrote the song, but his version while novel at first, ultimately is a pale comparison to Bowie’s.

David Bowie also produced “The Idiot” and it is fair to say that – as is not uncommon in my complex relationship with Bowie – I didn’t like the choices. The record sounds dull and flat, capturing the lo-fi sensibilities of punk but minus the visceral energy of it. While the production fits the vibe of the record, this is a sound you don’t want to be doubling down on.

This record has its moments, but it mostly had me wanting to go back in time and listen to the Stooges blast out “Raw Power” or dance to the synthy detachment of early eighties Bowie. The no man’s land between the two experiences did not appeal.

Best tracks: Sister Midnight, Tiny Girls

CD Odyssey Disc 1890: Dr. Hook

I hunted this next album out of the bargain bin of my local record store. One advantage of collecting music on what many consider to be an outdated format (CD) is that people are always shedding their old stuff.

Disc 1890 is… Sharing the Night Together and Other Favorites

Artist: Dr. Hook

Year of Release: 1989 but featuring songs from 1975 to 1979

What’s up with the Cover? A picture of the band, who either just moved into a recently renovated apartment, or are at a photography studio.

Either way, these guys do not look like they are about to share the night together, although some look like they didn’t go to bed.

How I Came To Know It: I grew up with a lot of these songs, and noting exactly zero crossovers with a different compilation already in my collection, decided it was worth the small investment.

How It Stacks Up: This is a compilation album, and so doesn’t stack up.

Ratings: Greatest Hits records don’t get rated, so if you want to know what I think about this one, you’ll have to read the article.

I know most of the songs on “Sharing the Night Together” due to being strapped into the back seat of my mom’s early sixties pale blue Rambler as a kid. The car and the hit-making prowess of Dr. Hook had a similar run for me through the early and mid-seventies, before both faded into obscurity. The car, after it broke down and we couldn’t afford to fix it, and Dr. Hook for what I assume are similar reasons.

This particular compilation is a collection of later songs and comes after Dr. Hook dropped the “and the Medicine Show” part of their title. Both albums feature songs about sex, drugs and rock and roll, but this later compilation has less of the middle topic, making dropping the ‘medicine show’ understandable.

Whatever the topic, Dr. Hook is well-named, as these songs are soft rock gold, and there is no going gold in the world of soft rock without a hook. These tunes have the inoffensive easy flow of radio-friendly music, with only a safe hint of danger. Are they talking about sex and drugs…on the radio?!? Why yes, they are, but they’re doing it softly, so your parents won’t mind (also they’re the ones tuning it in on the drive to the grocery store).

Let’s start with the sex, which is referenced plenty on this record. The opening track is “Sexy Eyes” which is about meeting a woman at the local disco/dance hall/honky tonk with a certain look in her eyes crossing the room toward our narrator. Based on the groove of the song, I’d suggest disco is the most likely scenario. The song has a mid-tempo funky guitar and the high prancing of an organ filling in for a jazz flute that would have felt equally at home.

The song is built for dancing at all three speeds: 1. A thin bit of air between partners, with plenty of tease in the hips 2. Hands on hips or shoulders, replete with sway and meaningful glances, and 3. Legal in public because your pants are still on. Pick your contact level based on whatever is mutually agreed.

The mid-to-late seventies was the era of free love and fun times, minus the idealism of the sixties, and Dr. Hook has all of the outcomes covered. Maybe that dance number from “Sexy Eyes” turns into the playful “Sharing the Night Together,” with an invite home, complete with sexy whispers and promises of “we could bring in the morning, girl/if you want to go that far”.

Or maybe it turns sour, as on “When You’re In Love With a Beautiful Woman” which sees the world through the sad, jealous eyes of some mistrusting joker with low self-esteem, worried that ‘his’ girl’s previously sexy eyes have become prone to wandering. Counterpoint: maybe she’s just tired of dating a guy who is always asking what she’s looking at or who was just on the phone.

And it is here where the record has a bit of an “ick” factor (or “of its time” if you are feeling charitable), because for all the sexual liberation inherent in a Dr. Hook song, there are moments where these tunes show their age. Worst of all is “If Not You” where our singer, opens with:

“Who's gonna water my plants?
Who's gonna patch my pants?
And who's gonna give me
The chance to feel brand new?”

Um…yuck.

OK, on to the drugs and partying, and the album has a couple of fine entries in Dr. Hook’s previous party songs (think “Cover of the Rolling Stone”, “Freaking at the Freaker’s Ball”). On this compilation we have “The Millionaire” a song about a guy without a lot going for him other than the inheritance of a rich uncle, and my personal favourite, “I Got Stoned and I Missed It” - the original version of Afro-Man’s “Because I Got High” only funnier with a better hook.

Before I exit, I should note that Dr. Hook is not all sex and novelty songs, and there are genuine moments of emotional resonance. The best is “A Couple More Years”. This heartfelt tune is cowritten by lead singer Dennis Locorriere and long-time Dr. Hook contributor/writer Shel Silverstein.

This song is a world-weary expression of sadness, experience and comfort, all balled together. I first discussed this song back at Disc 1653 when I reviewed a cover of it on Waylon Jennings’ album, “Are You Ready for the Country”. It isn’t often you can out-vocal ole Waylon, but but there is something about the high quaver in Locorriere’s voice that takes this song to the next level.

This record is a good way to explore a little of the latter half of Dr. Hook’s heyday. You’ll find a little groove, a little sway, a few solid pop hooks and generally (but not always) inoffensive rock and roll.

Best tracks: Sexy Eyes, A Couple More Years, When You’re In Love With a Beautiful Woman, The Millionaire, I Got Stoned and I Missed It

CD Odyssey Disc 1883: Blue Oyster Cult

With my car in the shop, this week will feature much longer music listening opportunities courtesy of…the bus! Here’s the first offering courtesy of my triumphant (?) return to public transit.

Disc 1883 is… Ghost Stories

Artist: Blue Oyster Cult

Year of Release: 2024 (original recordings from 1978 – 1983)

What’s up with the Cover? A ritualistic BOC logo inscribed on the floor, framed by four candles, has summoned three ghosts. I like to think they are the ghosts of Allen Lanier, Joe Bouchard and Albert Bouchard for reasons that I will reveal later.

Whoever they are, it is a good thing ghosts don’t get tired of standing, because there’s just the one chair.

How I Came To Know It: Blue Oyster Cult is my favourite band, and I’ve known them all my life. Of course I was going to check out their latest record.

How It Stacks Up: I have 12 of Blue Oyster Cult’s studio albums. Of the twelve, Ghost Stories comes in at…#11. Since this is my first BOC review in four years, and is also the final studio album awaiting review, here’s a full accounting:

1. Secret Treaties: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 866)
2. Fire of Unknown Origin: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 751)
3. Spectres.: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 514)
4. Self-Titled: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1505)
5. Agents of Fortune: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 463)
6. Cultosaurus Erectus: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 206)
7. Tyranny and Mutation: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1273)
8. Mirrors: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 685)
9. Imaginos: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 838)
10. The Revolution by Night: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 1159)
11. Ghost Stories: 3 stars (reviewed right here)
12. Club Ninja: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 780)

If you want to read more Blue Oyster Cult reviews (who wouldn’t) all the records above and also four live albums can be found here.

Ratings: 3 stars

I’ve loved Blue Oyster Cult since I was a star-eyed child searching for their hidden symbol in every album cover.

It is this abiding love that has made most of their recent studio albums such a letdown. From 1998 to 2020, BOC released only three albums and I liked exactly none of them. Having never experienced this before (just check out the fanboy ratings of the records above) my reaction went from an initial no-this-cannot-be! horror that morphed over the years into a despondent resignation as the final notes ended on 2020’s disappointing “The Symbol Remains”.

Was there never to be another worthy studio album from my childhood heroes? Well, cancel the pity party, because “Ghost Stories” announces the boys (all five of them) as back. After twenty plus years of waiting, we’ve got a keeper.

The record has an unfair advantage, in that it is actually a collection of studio recordings made from 1978 to 1983, remixed in 2024 and dubbed “the final studio album” upon its release.

This era of BOC music features two critically lauded classic records (1980’s “Cultasaurus Erectus” and “1981’s Fire of Unknown Origin”) which are bookended by two records of lesser acclaim (“Mirrors” (1979) and “The Revolution by Night” (1983). I happen to love them all.

Stylistically, “Ghost Stories” feels like it spans these records yet belongs to none of them. Every tune is a facet of Blue Oyster Cult, making the whole feel more like a collection of singles and B-sides. Despite this, there is a weird cohesion on multiple listens, akin to an ‘island of lost toys’ kind of vibe.

Blue Oyster Cult has always been blessed with the ability to try on a lot of different aspects of rock and roll. They prog out, they do stadium, they do doo wop and barroom blues. It’s all here on “Ghost Stories”.

The band was always blessed by multiple songwriters and singers, all contributing to something greater. What’s missing on those later studio records I couldn’t tolerate is the absence of key contributors like Joe and Albert Bouchard and (as of 2020) Allen Lanier. On “Ghost Stories” they are reunited with lifelong members Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma and the alchemy of the five of them sharing space and ideas returns from beyond the grave.

The opening track is “Late Night Street Fight”. It’s a Bloom/Joe Bouchard collaboration that ends up sounding like something off a late seventies Alice Cooper record. It’s not my favourite, but I love the way the band embraces that lascivious acid inspired sound all the same.

This is followed by Buck Dharma sixties crooner inspired “Cherry” which is pop schmaltz, with just the right amount of strange added. It’s a song about a girl, but somehow the band explores the dawn of creation at the same time. BOC is here to challenge you, even when wearing the skinsuits of sixties teen idols.

The third song is “So Supernatural” an atmospheric number from Joe Bouchard that sways its way into a room like a curtain blown by an unseen wind.

Rounding out the songwriter round, we have “Soul Jive” cowritten by Albert Bouchard and Patti Smith (a collaborator with the band at this time, as well as lover of Allen Lanier). This one has a mix of barroom guitar groove and a sublime bit of guitar work from Buck Dharma. Lanier adds some tasty touches of organ. All these sounds shouldn’t work together, but they do, and that’s the fearless magic of Blue Oyster Cult.

“Ghost Stories” also features the studio versions of “Kick Out the Jams” (MC5 cover) and “We Gotta Get Outta This Place” (Animals cover), both of which appear live on 1978’s “Some Enchanted Evening.” I prefer those live versions, but the studio versions are no joke.

Despite my fawning, the record is not perfect. There are moments where it felt like the band was trying too hard to play empty stadium rock anthems, and while they are OK, you can see why they didn’t make the cut on the albums at the time. The production feels a bit too clean in places as well, which I blame on the band’s decision to use AI to help master the original tapes.

That’s the only blame in me, though, and most of all I am thankful the band dusted off these old gems, polished them up, and reminded us one more time what this band was capable of when firing on all cylinders.

Best tracks: Cherry, So Supernatural, We Gotta Get Outta This Place, The Only Thing, Kick Out the Jams

CD Odyssey Disc 1877: Neil Young

Welcome to that rare event – back-to-back 5-star album reviews. This one is much more relaxed than the previous one.

Disc 1877 is… Harvest

Artist: Neil Young

Year of Release: 1972

What’s up with the Cover? Not much. Soft autumn colours suitable for harvest time, and some scripty font. On this one, Neil’s gonna let the music do the talkin’.

How I Came To Know It: In the early seventies “Heart of Gold” was on every AM radio station in the land, so this album is in my DNA. I didn’t buy my own copy until the late eighties, however (and that on cassette). Eventually, when I upgraded my collection to CD, this was one of the first converts.

How It Stacks Up: I have (or have had) 23 Neil Young albums. I thought for sure this was the last one to review but one remains. So the full list will have to wait, and for now I’ll simply note where “Harvest” ranks, which is #1. The best.

Ratings: 5 stars

After fifty plus years of “Harvest” gracing our collective consciousness, there isn’t much left unsaid in the hyperbole vault, but if it is a well-worn path I’m about to walk, at least it’ll be a beautiful one.

This record is a masterclass in songwriting, playing melodies that take you on a journey to the centre of the soul without need of a single word. Young’s quavering vocals are the perfect backdrop, but he could probably just idly make nonsense syllables and this record would be worth four stars.

Of course, he does much more than this, adding his finest storytelling and mood setting poetry to the music. The quiet and plaintive prayers of “A Man Needs a Maid” gives way to the spiritual wanderlust of “Heart of Gold”.

Over the years I have cycled through almost every track as my lyrical favourite. Perhaps the most heart-wrenching of all is “The Needle (and the Damage Done)” with its revelation that “every junkie’s like a setting sun.” Beautiful and tragic, and descending to darkness with a reminder that there’s “a little part of it in everyone” to remind us that all of society is affected by the tragedy, and every one of us could walk the path if fate were just a bit more unkind. We listen to this song a thousand times each time emerging both sadder and wiser at its revelations.

The record somehow manages to fill us with bone-deep weariness and transcendent wisdom at the same time. The combination is both rest and meditation, and the realization the two are not the same.

“Old Man” always comes to mind in this way. In my early twenties, this song brought a deep connection to restless youth. “Twenty-four and there’s so much more” and the trepidation on just what the “so much more” would entail. In my middle-age this song speaks just as strongly, with different accents and connections across the years – decisions made, and the ongoing work to fully come into who we are through the accumulation of our deeds. I fully expect to find yet undiscovered connections years hence when I’m in my eighties.

Great lyrics alone do not make a great record, however. While “Harvest” ranges from folk to rock sensibilities, Neil Young’s guitar is ever present. Sometimes strumming quietly along in fellowship (“Out on the Weekend”, “Harvest”) and sometimes digging in with discordant raw emotion (“Alabama”, “Words (Between the Lines of Age)”). Young’s tone and style of playing is one of the most unique in music, and the brilliance of it is sometimes overlooked on his folkier records.

The arrangements on “Harvest” also serve the story. Banjo, piano and harmonica come and go at just the right time. A song like “Heart of Gold” would be a classic played on a single acoustic guitar, but the delayed entry of that harmonica hook a couple of bars in – that’s what makes it transcendent. Later that step-down of the guitar tag provides the perfect juxtaposition to the harmonica’s high peal of manic exploration. The combination lets the song “search” high and low, as the tension between the two instruments, and the rival hooks they play, mirrors the restless nature of the seeker.

Over the years every song on this record has revealed its secrets to me like a flower in full bloom. Untold decades and countless listens later I simply can’t pick a favourite anymore. All of them.

Best tracks: all tracks

CD Odyssey Disc 1860: Meat Loaf

This review is a little longer than most but bear with me and we’ll see it through together.

Disc 1860 is…Bat Out of Hell

Artist: Meat Loaf

Year of Release: 1977

What’s up with the Cover? A very sexy, very flexible barbarian bursts forth from his grave on a motorcycle decorated with what may be the skull of a horse.

You’d think having died and (presumably) gone to hell once already that our rider would wear proper protective clothing while riding, but no. He’s dressed in nothing but a loincloth.

Also notable, the massive and ultracool bat headstone on the biker’s tomb. Big bat energy!

How I Came To Know It: This is a longer tale than usual, but I’ll try to be brief and hopefully we’ll exit to the main review with minimal emotional scarring. It is a tale of terror and redemption, told in two parts.

It began around the time it got released. I don’t remember my exact age, but well under 10. These were hard times. My mom was divorcing my dad who was a drunk, and not the fun kind. He was moved out of the house by this time, and at some point when I wasn’t home he had dropped off a copy of “Bat Out of Hell” on vinyl for me as a gift.

Later that night he called – drunk – and slurring away he butchered some of the lyrics to “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” at me, while my mom sat in the room, horrified, trying to be supportive, letting me know through a mix of whispers and gestures that I was free to talk to dad or hang up, whatever I was comfortable with. After an indeterminate period of fear-inspired paralysis, and some halting efforts to navigate the conversation, I hung up.

So Meat Loaf and I didn’t get off to a great start.

A few years passed, and into my teens this record became ubiquitous at parties and events, and like everyone else of my generation I got to know it pretty well, even to the point of singing along (n.b. this is a record that is very hard to not sing along to). It was a cursed relic in my collection – full of danger and dread but so compelling I couldn’t resist putting it on.

Flash forward many decades. Maybe ten years ago, I was walking home from the pub with Sheila and our good friends Cat & Ross, and on a whim the four of us decided to detour into the very suspect selection of CDs and records in the local London Drugs. Our mission? Buy one record or CD right there. Find something among the wreckage and buy it, no matter what!

I found Meat Loaf sitting there for $9.99 and while everything I just shared was still with me, it felt a little less dangerous with a couple of drinks in me (yes, I recognize the irony). Anyway, I bought it and got it home. Side note: my three companions all welched on our pact. Disappointing…

But back to the music. How do I feel about it now? Well, readers, that’s what you’re here to find out, innit?

How It Stacks Up: I have two Meat Loaf albums, and this is the best one by a goodly margin - #1.

Ratings: 4 stars

Let’s set aside the personal journal and just take a minute to bask in the overblown, ambitious, majestic glory that is “Bat Out of Hell”. This record is all the right kinds of crazy, with every musical idea that writer Jim Steinman could imagine, all dialed up to eleven.

You can’t talk about “Bat Out of Hell” without Steinman, who is the creative genius behind this hyperbolic collection of bombast. Meat Loaf is his muse, but Steinman is the conductor.

These songs feel better suited as part of a live rock opera a la Rocky Horror than a rock and roll record, but Steinman is a manic genius and bends the genre to his will, making songs that raise their quavering devil horns with such pure conviction that they can’t possibly be faking it.

Do you like excessively long rock anthems that are entirely unsuitable for radio play? Well, “Bat Out of Hell” has three of them. You’re welcome.

It all starts with the title track, which has about as many movements as a 19^th century classical symphony. I could describe each of them but doing that would take the rest of my evening and this entire review, and I’m already over. The song captures the reckless energy of driving too fast, then the drawn-out pain of the inevitable crash and death, before ending with the image of a young man’s heart literally bursting out of his body and flying away…like a bat out of hell. What the flying fuck?

This sort of thing shouldn’t work, but fortunately Steinman’s genius has the perfect partner in the bigger than life person and voice of…Meat Loaf. Meat Loaf - one of rock and roll’s great all time voices - vibrating with a tension that pushes higher and higher but never snaps under all the resulting pressure. Instead you just know in your bones that everything he is singing about is REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT.

Everything that comes out of Meat Loaf’s mouth becomes bigger and better, and the record becomes a series of ultracool phrases that after multiple listens you start to eagerly anticipate.

On the album’s second song, “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)” he practically trembles with emotion as he sings:

“It was a hot summer night, and the beach was burning
There was fog crawling over the sand
When I listen to your heart, I hear the whole world turning
I see the shooting stars falling through your trembling hands”

Yes! Yes and yes! If you aren’t getting it by reading the stanza, you can be forgiven, but if you’ve ever heard the song even in passing then right now there is a 50/50 chance you are already raising a clawed hand to the sky – Jack Black style – and brandishing your invisible goblet of rock.

Meat Loaf is the consummate front man, with acres of range both through the octaves but also emotionally. He can bring the power, but he can also sing with tenderness and love, as he demonstrates at the end of the record on “For Crying Out Loud” (another nine minute epic).

And in between those two epics we have the record’s biggest commercial moment which is fittingly also nine minutes long. “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is the song that introduced my entire generation to sex in a car years before we even what sex was, or even that the song wasn’t remotely about baseball.

While “Bat Out of Hell” is a musical waiting to happen (I think it eventually did happen…), “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is an entire story all on its own. It features young lust, a vigorous exchange of ideas between our two protagonists, consummation and – inevitably – regret.

Some great lines here as well, but my favourite: “And we're glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife” which captures that glint of light that comes from the instruments of the titular dashboard, even as it evokes the glow of youthful desire. Yeah, I said it. Titular.

Musically the record borrows from seventies stadium anthems, theatre, classical, doo wop and everything in between. You get pianos, guitars, duets, hand claps and all manner of excess, all blended into a soup of sex, speed, and rock and roll. sexual discovery through Steinman’s vision and Meat Loaf’s artistry. Is it all a bit ridiculous? You’re damned right it is – delightfully ridiculous.

There will always be a darkness lurking at the edge of my mind when I listen to “Bat Out of Hell.” I could harbour a futile anger at my now long-dead father for this, but life’s too short for that. In the end all we really have is how we own our experiences. “Bat Out of Hell” is a God-damned triumph. If it took a few decades longer than it should have for me to realize that, well that makes the victory – my victory – all the sweeter.

Post-script: Having written this I couldn’t remember if I even had my original vinyl anymore. Turns out, I don’t. I don’t remember when it left, and I don’t miss it. But the CD, and all the awesome memories it holds? That’s a keeper.

Best tracks: Bat Out of Hell, You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night), Paradise by the Dashboard Light, For Crying Out Loud

CD Odyssey Disc 1857: Wicked Lady

With this next review (which spans 1968-1972) the last three reviews will have dropped in on four different decades of music. Fun!

Disc 1857 is…The Axeman Cometh

Artist: Wicked Lady

Year of Release: 1968-1972

What’s up with the Cover? I’m not one for censorship, but I’m also not keen on having my account suspended, so I will not be sharing the cover of “the Axeman Cometh”. Instead, you get this generic rendition of the band’s logo.

If you were to look up the cover (n.b. not to be done at work), you will not find an axeman. Instead you will find an old-timey photo of a wicked lady wearing nothing but a hat, a belt, and some jewelry standing in what could be characterized as an ‘immodest’ pose.

On reflection, this lady is not necessarily wicked at all. For all we know she’s a devoted mother of three who models for an avant-garde jewelry company. However, she is naked so before you search her out, you’ve been warned.

How I Came To Know It: I found this recently in my local record store’s metal section. I kept passing it over, and then somewhere I was reading a metal review and it was referenced in passing, igniting my interest. Since I had some gift money I decided to give it a chance, unheard, on a whim.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Wicked Lady album so it can't stack up. Technically it is their complete works, but I can’t confirm they ever released a studio album (their internet presence is very light) and there are only eight tracks, so I’m treating this as a regular record, rather than a compilation.

Ratings: 4 stars

While I found “The Axeman Cometh” in the metal section of the record store this is not strictly heavy metal. I call what Wicked Lady gets up to “Riffnoodle.” They like a good riff, but they like to noodle from that riff even more. It’s a psychedelic hard rock situation that really gets into itself and stays there for a very long time. All songs are played in the key of Wankery.

“Whoa,” you say with trepidation, “that sounds like it’ll be pretty self-indulgent” and you’d be right. This era of hard rock is full of bands that do whatever the hell they want, for as long as they want (n.b. often this is very long) and radio play be damned. I don’t have a lot of Riffnoodle in my collection for this reason, although some will swear by it, and if you love Cream, or Blue Cheer or Sir Lord Baltimore or other bands of this vintage and style, you are going to like Wicked Lady. If that’s not your cup of tea then – much like the album’s cover – you’ve been warned.

As for me, I wanted all these 6-10 minute long wank fests to annoy me, but it never happened. That’s for a simple reason, and that is guitarist (aka ‘axeman’) Martin Weaver is so damned good. This band plays songs that sound like extended jam sessions but they are so tight, and so deep into the groove that you don’t mind the excess of it all. Wankery here is a feature, not a bug.

According to the Internet (actual websites, not just the AI summary) the wah-wah pedal was invented in 1966, and Wicked Lady are early and devoted adopters. Many of these songs feature extended wah action, as well as various other filters and effects that I know nothing about, being mainly ignorant of the inner mysteries of the guitar once it has been plugged into an amp.

Again, this wah action could get annoying very easily, but in the skilled hands of Wicked Lady it never does. Yeah, it goes on for a long time, but the solos are delicious to the ear. You can practically smell the blue haze of a hotboxed recording studio, but miraculously no one loses focus or intent for a second.

In between solos, the band jams away, the riffs being the bread that lets you get your ears around all that meaty guitar work. It’s like a Montreal smoked meat sandwich – there’s clearly too much meat stuffed in there, but you can’t deny it’s tasty. Even the bass solos (there are extended bass solos as well) are delicious.

The production is what you would expect from a band you’d never heard of – not great, and at least on the CD it felt distant. In the 2012 re-issue liner notes Weaver writes “If you can’t play Wicked Lady loud – don’t play it!” and while this is true, the production doesn’t make it easy to accomplish. Don’t despair, however. I just keep doggedly turning the stereo’s nob to the right and eventually I got there.

Once I arrived, it was like a bath of excess rock and roll majesty that didn’t teach me any valuable lessons about life, but was fun to soak in nonetheless.

Best tracks: Run the Night, The Axeman Cometh, Wicked Lady, Out of the Dark

CD Odyssey Disc 1833: Prince

Greetings, readers! I am in the middle of a week of vacation, which is why you are getting this review a bit earlier on a Wednesday than you ordinarily might.

Disc 1833 is…Self-Titled

Artist: Prince

Year of Release: 1979

What’s up with the Cover? Prince shows us how to make a stock ‘head and shoulders’ shot into something sexy. What makes it sexy? The porn-star moustache? The lack of a shirt? The tantalizingly almost-visible right nipple?

Yes, all these things, and one thing more: Prince knows he is sexy. And when he stares at you with those big, beautiful eyes, you know that he knows.

How I Came To Know It: Over the last few years I’ve been slowly exploring Prince’s back catalogue. I found this one in the used section of my local record store, after some very foolish person decided to part with it.

How It Stacks Up: I have nine Prince albums in the collection (up from four in 2011 and seven in 2020). I highly doubt I’m done. However, I rank against what I have in the moment, so today I’ll put this record in at…#3.

Ratings: 4 stars

In 2006 Justin Timberlake proposed to bring sexy back, but in 1979 Prince wasn’t interested in such temporal niceties. His self-titled sophomore effort is suffused with sexy in a way that transcends space and time. Sexy is Everywhere, All at Once, All the Time. If you are ready to slide into that reality, then you are ready for this record.

Marvin Gaye wishes he could have this kind of staying power on a theme. That is not to say this record is without variety – it is just to say that all that variety exists in the context of sexy times.

Sometimes, Prince drops fast-moving funky grooves. Let’s call this ‘vertical sexy’, the kind of sexy you experience on the dance floor. Maybe you are dancing with a partner and reveling in the mirroring and call-and-answer crazy when you’ve got a groove going, and so does your partner (or partners – the dance floor being a wondrous and chaotic place). You’re showing off your moves, you’re checking out other people’s moves. The vibe is fan-fucking-tastic. Know the feeling? Well, Prince has the music you need.

Let’s start with “I Wanna Be Your Lover” which is one of the funkiest dance tunes ever written. You will dance until you split your pants grooving to this song, but you will be so in the throes of the music you won’t notice until later. Do not worry; it is dark in the club.

Do you love the opening riff of Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration”? Then you’ll also like the opening of “I Wanna Be Your Lover” which came out a year earlier and very much ‘inspired’ (and I’m being kind here) Kool’s “Celebration”. “I Wanna Be Your Lover” eschews the more mainstream celebration vibe, however and goes deep into the twisty Tunnels of Undiscovered Groove. Funky drum? Yes! Synthesizer wonderment? Yes! The funkiest guitar that ever funked up Funktown? Hell yes!

Prince follows this song up with “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?” a song that shows the proto-eighties funk sound that Prince would later make famous three years later on “1999”. He’s already working it here – there’s just less people noticing at this time.

Rounding out the top three “vertical” tunes that start the record is “Sexy Dancer”. If the previous two songs were not funky enough for you, Prince has a balm for you, and that balm is a bomb - “Sexy Dancer” If some of the funkiest bass and guitar riff action on this song is not enough to get the juices flowing, don’t worry, Prince has added some sexy panting. Yes, panting – and not the split in the bottom kind I mentioned earlier although…related.

The record also features many slower songs like “When We’re Dancing Close and Slow”, “With You” and “It’s Gonna Be Lonely” that I would call ‘horizontal sexy’. I hope I don’t have to explain why, but if I do then you should ask your parents instead. This column provides music advice only. This stuff is Prince at his most…romantic. Not sure that’s the word. How about…intimate? It shows off his delightful high head voice and also that he knows how to play a more nuanced and gentle guitar style when the occasion calls for it.

Speaking of guitar, it is worth pointing out that even at this early stage of his career, Prince is already showcasing his virtuosity on the instrument. The soft and sensitive tones of “With You” and the raunchy rock power featured on “Bambi” are played with equal and amazing skill. Prince is so compositionally brilliant and musically innovative that it is easy to forget what a talent he was on guitar.

Near the end of the record Prince gives us “I Feel For You”, made famous by Chaka Khan many years later, Prince delivers the original (yes, he wrote it) almost as an afterthought.

This record is a hidden gem and only hidden because of the sheer volume of awesome things Prince did in the years that followed. Do yourself a favour and go back to the beginning. You’ll be glad you did.

Best tracks: I Wanna Be Your Lover, Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?, Sexy Dancer, Bambi, It’s Gonna Be Lonely

CD Odyssey Disc 1826: Al Stewart

A long-time and loyal reader recently asked me to consider not reviewing compilations, and sticking to studio and live records exclusively. I get it. I am enraged every time I see compilation albums on “greatest records of all time” lists (I’d be looking at you, Rolling Stone – except that I don’t look at you anymore). I avoid that crime by not assigning ratings or rankings to them.

I appreciate the suggestion (and the loyal readership) but I can’t very well change the system 1,800+ records in. Once a reviewer starts making exceptions people start disobeying the rules and then it’s nothing but work work work….

So with apologies to those who feel likewise, herewith is a “best of” review. I’ll keep it entertaining by seeding it with Princess Bride references. Hint: they’ve already started…

Disc 1826 is…The Very Best of Al Stewart

Artist: Al Stewart

Year of Release: 1988, but featuring music from 1973 - 1981

What’s up with the Cover? If it was just the inset photo, this would qualify as a Giant Head Cover (much beloved for many years here on the Odyssey) but it being inset it only manages to land a designation of 'Medium Head'.

Upon that Medium Head Al Stewart has a luxurious mop of hair, so bushy, big and absent of any modern hair care products that it extends past the frame in a way that would make a passport photographer grimace.

I once had a head of hair even more resplendent than this (I have a driver’s license photo where it extends not past one side of the frame, but three sides!). As with Mr. Stewart, time has been unkind to this head of hair and now only photos remain.

But I digress…

How I Came To Know It: Sheila (who grew up listening to Al Steward on the radio) grabbed this one at a thrift store. I did not know anything about Al Stewart, but our thrift store CD rules dictate that anything brought home gets a chance, no matter how weird.

How It Stacks Up: No stacking compilations

Ratings: Compilations aren’t rated. If you want to know more about how I feel about Al Stewart you’re gonna have to read to the end.

By 1988 a lot more people had CD players, and they were hungrily looking for content. Unlike me in 1988, most of those people were well off and older, so you can find a fair bit of compilation albums from artists in the seventies that appealed to folks of a certain vintage.

Enter Mr. Al Stewart, and his smooth and silky sounds of British folk revivalism. British folk revivalism in the seventies wasn’t about obscure reels from the highlands or keening murder ballads, it was about bringing the sensibility of folk (telling a story) to the masses. The result packed a lot of schmaltz.

Stewart’s vocals are made for such a movement, with a pure and light tone as soothing and inoffensive of a gentle summer breeze. Even when Stewart is singing about harsh topics, you can’t help but feel relaxed. Nazis on the hill you say? Be there right after I finish this glass of sangria…

“Wait a minute”, you exclaim, “This album has Nazis! I was told Al Stewart was a chill laid back pop/folk singer!”

He is, gentle reader, but in the same way some stories have Cliffs of Insanity and shrieking eels, other tales have Nazis - bad guys help drive a plot. The only difference is Nazis are real. In fact, the song featuring Nazis – “Roads to Moscow” is one of the album’s better tracks. It is an eight-minute opus telling the story of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 all the way through to their eventual defeat four years later. If my 10 Sabaton albums didn’t already tip you off, I’m a sucker for a history nerd song, and “Roads to Moscow” pushed all the right buttons. it is a fine example of a “never get involved in a land war in Asia” song (for the best ever please listen to Mark Knopfler’s “Bonaparte”).

As for production and arrangement decisions, this record is not afraid to try things. We’ve got flamenco (“On the Border”), samba (“the Running Man”) and even a little Ziggy Stardust rip-offery (“Lord Grenville”), all of it wrapped up in a sweet AM radio pop friendly coating to help it go down easier. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Despite harsh topics like Russian winter war, Al Stewart isn’t here to make you feel bad. The worst moments in his breakup song “Delia’s Gone” feature rain at the beach and some disconcerting “dream figures with moons for eyes” (?). Compare that to Johnny Cash’s “Delia” where our title character gets shot. Dead.

I didn't grow up listening to the radio much and the station in my hometown wasn’t Al Stewart friendly anyway so the only song I knew on this record going in was “Time Passages”. It’s a masterclass in writing a pop melody. I fell smitten from the first bar and despite two unconscionably bad saxophone solos (yes, two – in the same song) I still couldn’t help but love this enduring standard of AM radio gold.

Another feature of the CD is it can hold a lot more music, so artists weren’t stuck with the radio edits of their hits (although in the case of “Time Passages” that would have been welcome). You can throw on some epics like “Roads to Moscow” and the even more bloated “Nostradamus Part One, the World Goes to Riyadh, Nostradamus Part Two (live)”. Yes, that’s the title of the second song where, over a 13 minute span, Stewart sets large swaths of Nostradamus predictions to music. I admit I liked this more than is seemly (see: history nerd comments above).

Only about a third of thrift store albums survive into the collection, so you won’t read about all of ‘em. This Al Stewart stuff turned out to be a hidden gem, however, and any fun I have poked above was of the gentle variety.

Best tracks: Time Passages, Delia’s Gone, Road to Moscow, Merlin’s Times