Roxy Music - Siren (1975)

Dan:

In Miami I had a friend Rafael who was into rock music. About 1984, he turned me on to Roxy Music, a band I had never heard of before. I looked into them and was not sure whether I would like a "glam" band or not. Fortunately, my first acquisition was Siren, their fifth album. I got the impression that the first track, "Love Is the Drug," was the favorite single, but it was the only track that I did NOT like. The rest of the album was full of interesting songs that typify Roxy Music's distinctive approach to progressive rock. "She Sells," "Sentimental Fool," and "Both Ends Burning" are the most engaging for me, but the whole album is completely satisfying. Even the weirdest songs have irresistible hooks. Thank you, Rafael!

I then explored the rest of the band's records, including the live EP The High Road. The only disappointments were the self-titled first album and Manifesto. I noticed the increasingly polished production that began around the time of Flesh + Blood and Avalon but viewed it positively. I also became a huge Bryan Ferry fan, collecting most of his solo albums. 

Part of my admiration for Roxy Music is because Bryan Ferry is exactly one year younger than me, and we do look a bit alike, so I'm told. (My other doppelgänger is Righteous Brother Bill Medley, who is four years older than me). Of course, I'm not debonaire, don't smoke, and can't sing or make any remotely musical sounds (that's why I have the Hi Fi). I've never worn a white dinner jacket either, although our Florida home did have a swimming pool.

Several of Ferry's solo albums, such as Another Time, Another Place, cover old-timey songs from the 1950s and earlier - definitely pre-prog. Many critics pan these albums for their song choices and the retro style productions. My belief is that the choices of standards and Motown classics are a sincere tribute to the music that he grew up listening to. He's not mocking anybody like you might think. This is what we old-timers listened to growing up in the 50s and 60s. 

Steve:

I was given many opportunities to hear Roxy Music in my youth, thanks to Dan. For a few years, I think they were the most-played band on his stereo. Siren, Stranded, Country Life, and Avalon are the ones I remember hearing the most. The High Road EP and VHS concert video were also frequently played. I also recall assisting Dan in making a Roxy Music mix tape. By the time I was out of high school, I was an old pro at Roxy Music, although I did not have any albums of my own. No need, he had them all!

In one of my most surreal high school memories, my sister Amy (3 years my junior) was having a birthday party at our house, and my friend Tim's rock band was the entertainment. The repertoire was mostly punk rock, but there was one cool song I wasn't familiar with. When I asked them, it turned out to be "Virginia Plain", from Roxy Music's first album. As Dan mentioned above, he didn't regard that album very highly, so I had not heard it before. It was right there on his shelf, though.  

Back to Siren. Roxy Music's fifth album represents the peak of the original band's run - their first five albums are all rightly considered rock classics and became key steppingstones that moved rock in more artful directions, leading the way for glam rock and New Wave at the same time. "Love is the Drug" remains one of their more popular songs, though I confess I'm a little tired of it by now; the real meat of the album is elsewhere - practically no weak tracks on the whole record. Hard to even choose a favorite, but it may be "Just Another High", with "She Sells" not far behind. Oh, and "Whirlwind". Goodness me, what an album. Listen to it today!

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (1975)

Dan:

How do you follow a mega-hit album? Make another mega-hit album. That's what Pink Floyd did with Wish You Were Here, two years following Dark Side of the Moon. I remember buying the CD version of WYWH about 1985 - my very first CD purchase. In those days we marveled at the absence of surface noise and were told that CDs provided "perfect sound forever." At Sound Advice in Miami, a salesman made a point of stomping on a demo CD to impress customers that it did not affect play. Such was the hype of digital compact discs.

Of course, a lot of the hype was nonsense. Scratched CDs did skip. "Perfect sound" failed to survive simple comparisons with vinyl, revealing "digititis," a grainy and ear-fatiguing characteristic of early digital discs. But that did not deter their promoters from demeaning "scratchy, dusty old records" in order to sell the new digital medium. 

Forty years later, vinyl rules again. CDs are largely missing in action, supplanted by vinyl reissues and online streaming and downloads. Today, my copy of WYWH is a rip from a deluxe Analogue Productions SACD edition, which I later sold to a guy in Spain. It is a much better version than the one I first bought. I also sold my German vinyl pressing because I like my rock music in portable format to hear at the gym or in the car.

I've so far dodged the usual analysis of the music, mostly because everybody should already be clued into this wonderful record. It's constructed around the nine-part "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," an elegy for Syd Barrett. "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar" serve as an interlude to the main theme, forming a second related theme critical of the music industry: ("Which one is Pink?" asked the obtuse producer on "Have a Cigar").

Obviously, Pink Floyd had matured into the top band in progressive rock and beyond. With almost guaranteed sales, they could craft whatever they wanted to do musically into beautifully produced albums and live performances. 

Probably everyone has a story about their discovery of Pink Floyd. Few bands transcend normal criteria of excellence; the Floyd are one of them. 

Steve:

Wish You Were Here was such a strong follow-up to Dark Side of the Moon that fans are evenly divided on which is the better album. It's a vastly different album too, making its popularity all the more impressive. It was during the making of this album that the band began to seriously fragment, leading one member to quip in an interview (paraphrasing) "it should have been called Wish We Were Here." Clearly, it was difficult work, but the band, still in that sweet spot of commercial and critical success enjoyed by few others outside Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, pulled through.

Interestingly, a good portion of what would become the Animals (1977) album was already written and performed live by this time, and the less conceptually minded David Gilmour argued to put these songs on one side ("You've Got to Be Crazy" aka "Dogs", and "Raving and Drooling", aka "Sheep") while putting "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" on the other side. But Roger Waters prevailed, and instead spread out the "Shine On" suite across two sides, with three newer pieces forming its creamy center. I agree with Waters' decision - the sequencing lends weight both to the suite and to the pieces in the middle. Not to mention that the most famous of these tunes, the title track, has an excellent segue from its windswept outro to the ominous bass theme of the second half of the suite.  

I remember hearing this album on Dan's stereo not long after we'd discovered Dark Side of the Moon, but I was not aware it was his first CD as far back as 1983. I don't recall CDs entering our household until 1985, when Dan got his first CD player and (what I recall as) his first CD, Avalon by Roxy Music. Soon after, I got my first CD, Candy-O by The Cars. I was already a big Pink Floyd fan by that time, but I think the first Pink Floyd album that I actually owned was Meddle, which I got because Dan didn't already have it. 

[Dan's comment: Steve is probably correct about the dates; my brain is older than his and I have more I have to remember. I've changed my part of the post from 1983 to 1985. I'm sure no one reading this post cares anyway.]

Brian Eno - Another Green World (1975)

Dan:

Brian Eno came to the music world's attention in the early 1970s with a pair of albums that defied conventional standards for rock and roll. Here Come the Warm Jets (1973) and Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy) (1974) shocked my ears, yet they were hailed as breakthrough albums. Critics extolled their virtues; listeners like me struggled to understand their appeal. 

Abruptly, Eno made two albums in 1975 that no one could have predicted, given their immediate predecessors. Discreet Music marked the dawn of ambient music, created and recorded in the studio by one person at the controls of various electronic devices. The rear cover of Discreet Music provides a map of the signal paths for the various loops and processing, giving the listener a sense of the creative process. It's a beautiful album in many respects, but certainly not rock.

Eno's second 1975 release was Another Green World, which was not ambient but rather a hybrid of songs, group interplay, and electronic wizardry. It is also a beautiful album but much more engaging than Discreet Music. Contributing musicians include Phil Collins, Robert Fripp, Rod Melvin, Percy Jones, Paul Rudolph, Brian Turrington, and John Cale. They don't comprise an actual band but rather play parts in Eno's designs. Eno and Rhett Davies assembled the album as co-producers.

I've owned this album for over 40 years, beginning with the vinyl copy I bought at Spec's in Miami and now enjoying a remastered digital version. It never seems to age or lose its relevance. 

Another Green World's success and almost universal appeal lies in the way that the tracks are sequenced. Eno's singing voice is technically unimpressive, and it conveys an odd sense of emotional detachment. However, his songs alternate with instrumental interludes that connect the elements into a moody whole with lots of emotional weight. It's hard to think of any other album that pulls off such trickery to such marvelous effect. 

There are too many special moments on Another Green World to mention them all. Every song and transition seem to cast magical spells that prompt profound insights that don't depend on any literal understanding. "I'll Come Running" and "Everything Merges with the Night" come closest to being songs about something, but most lyrics conjure images of imaginary places. (This sense of place is key to enjoying Eno's ambient albums, especially Ambient 4 (On Land)). Each of the instrumental tracks, several less than two minutes long, is a miniature gem. 

Sonically, the whole album scores high marks - lots of juicy bass, judicious use of synthesizers, and terrific blending across the different instruments and devices. It's no mystery that Eno is as wonderful a producer as he is a musician. 

Steve:

I'll echo Dan's praise of Another Green World's sequencing. More than anything else, this album is presented as a piece of artwork, almost a series of musical paintings, and the pacing, length, and placement of these pieces is as important to the overall work as the pieces themselves. The highlights for me are the two instrumental pieces "In Dark Trees" and "The Big Ship", two songs whose music perfectly evokes the titles, and at a couple of minutes length apiece, seem like they could each go on forever. But that seems to be the key to all the best songs on this album - each track is a glimpse into one narrow aspect of this mystical Green World, and each glimpse could easily last an entire afternoon, but instead it merges into a new setting, like gazing out the window of a train passing through the countryside.

Of the vocal pieces, "St. Elmo's Fire" is a favorite, not least because it has a wonderful Robert Fripp guitar solo; "Golden Hours" is hypnotic with its odd evocation of ennui and/or dementia; elsewhere, the refrain of "I'll Come Running to Tie Your Shoe" comes across as a sincere pledge of love and devotion. But it is the interstitial instrumental pieces that really define Another Green World. Rarely had instrumental music been so visually oriented in the rock era.

The Grateful Dead - One From the Vault (1975)

Dan: 

My wife and I used to stop at an outlet mall on our trips to North Carolina, which gave me a chance to browse the CDs at Music for a Song. That's where I picked up The Grateful Dead's 2-CD set, One From the Vault, in the late 1990s. I was still new to the Dead and the price was right. Little did I know the depths to which I would later dive into their massive trove of live recordings. 

One From the Vault is one of the best live recordings of the Dead, and it signaled a change in the band's direction post-Pigpen. Blues rave-ups were replaced by more cerebral jazz-infected jams such as "Eyes of the World," "Franklin's Tower," "The Music Never Stopped," and "Help on the Way/Slipknot." I wouldn't say that they turned toward prog because the band did not follow trends. Instead, they set trends that few bands could emulate. 

However, their approach during the 1975-1978 period was genuinely progressive in the sense that they were moving forward compositionally into more complex material. For instance, the closing number on One from the Vault is the mysterious "Blues for Allah," drawn from the studio album of the same name. It's a spooky 21 minutes that is part social commentary and part pure experiment. The Dead never made anything like it afterwards. 

I ran a half marathon in 1999 and stuck One from the Vault into my fanny pack along with a portable CD player and headphones. It got me through to the finish line! I can't think of a better soundtrack for my only long-run experience. 

Steve:

I took even longer than Dan to get into the Grateful Dead. I always admired their musicianship, but I just couldn't get much of a handle on the songs. Fans always tell you that you've got to listen to them live to understand why they're so good. However, I only started to understand them once I tackled their studio albums - that way, I learned the songs, which gave me the tools to make sense of their live extrapolations. So if you've tried getting into the Dead by listening to 30-minute jams on "Truckin'/The Other One" and just didn't understand what was going on, may I suggest you try my approach instead. 

Once emboldened with a working knowledge of their songbook, particularly the Blues for Allah album (one of their best and most progressive), listening to One From the Vault achieved a whole new level of enjoyability. This concert was a great, albeit unusual choice for the inaugural "From the Vault" release in that it documents a show that I believe had never been circulated to fans prior to its release, and it is also an atypical show. The band had been off the road for quite a while prior to this show, and the Allah material was receiving its public debut. The show was not just a stop on a tour; it was a special event during a non-touring period for the band. This gave the show a "showcase" atmosphere and a sense of occasion. Indeed, the performance of "Blues for Allah" was a pretty unique event in itself. The band only performed this piece five times, all in 1975.

Apart from the Allah material, you get some great performances of recent favorites such as "Eyes of the World" and the Jerry Garcia solo number "Sugaree". The recording sounds great and the formal invitation graphics of the packaging is entirely appropriate given the special occasion documented on this CD. Again, though, I stress that if you're not already familiar with the Dead, this may not be a great place to start. It helps to digest it in context - both the band's situation at the time and its established repertoire, as documented on prior studio work. Contrary to popular belief, they were actually a pretty great studio band too.

Terje Rypdal - Odyssey (1975)

Dan: 

In Miami, I often tuned my FM radio to the University of Miami jazz programs. One day, the deejay played "Better Off Without You" from Terje Rypdal's Odyssey album, thus introducing me to the Norwegian guitarist. I'm not sure when or where I picked up the 2-LP set of Odyssey, but it could not have been long after I heard the one cut on the radio.

Rypdal's guitar should be music to the ears of prog lovers. He began as a prog rocker but moved into the jazz genre while retaining many prog tendencies (e.g., long form compositions, emphasis on guitar), but excluding vocals for the most part (e.g., Inger Lise Rypdal adds wordless vocals to After the Rain (1976).

But this was neither jazz-infused rock nor rock-infused jazz. It was something new, unique to both rock and jazz. With his long sustained and pleasantly distorted chords, he could create a wall of sound against which bassists supplied swelling bottom and drummers provided accents. Drummers were mostly freed from the need to play conventional rhythms because most of Rypdal's music floats, soundscapes suspended in time and space. 

As a double LP, Odyssey serves as the perfect showcase for the guitarist. His trio is augmented by organ and trombone. Tracks range in length from the opening "Darkness Falls" at 3:27 to the closer "Rolling Stone" at 23:54. Half of the album's eight tracks are over 10 minutes long. Engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug and Producer Manfred Eicher, who jointly created the "ECM sound," are responsible for converting the guitarist's imagination into a fully realized sonic journey. 

I've collected about a dozen of Rypdal's ECM albums. See my review of one of the best at MORE FAVORITES: Reflections on Jazz in the 1980s: Search results for rypdal (jazzinthe80s.blogspot.com). Odyssey is the choice for our blog because it marks my discovery of one of my favorite artists. For me, Terje Rypdal is the perfect example of the fusion between jazz and progressive rock. 

Steve:

I don't recall when or where I first heard Terje Rypdal, but I'm certain it was from Dan's collection. At the time, I was accustomed to hearing jazz around the house, and I didn't really have the sophistication to distinguish one jazz artist from another (I still don't, arguably). Terje Rypdal, along with other artists on the ECM label, were the first such artists to stand out. Rypdal, as an electric guitarist sounding not too far off from David Gilmour and Steve Hackett in my mind, won me over with his sound alone, especially at the time when I was first getting serious about progressive rock.

After Rypdal's Works compilation CD on ECM (a series afforded to many other ECM artists), Odyssey is definitely the first complete album by Rypdal I fully digested. I copied Dan's LP onto a C90 cassette and brought it with me to college, where it made an impression on my friend Rob, who was finding inspiration in Rypdal's guitar stylings. In one of our inspired jam sessions in the college band room (Rob, being a music major, had a key to the music building for after-hours use), we recorded a version of Rypdal's "Ambiguity" (from the Chaser album) with him on guitar and me on drums. Sadly, that recording is lost. But Odyssey was the catalyst behind all that free-wailing, modal atmospheric stuff for us. For many years to follow, we would continue to record together as The Blue Sign Factory, and the Rypdal aesthetic is one of the few common threads across our many recordings. 

Below is a link to a video I have watched many times, of Rypdal and his band performing for a TV broadcast around the time of Odyssey. It captures the magic of his band better than my words can.