Queen - Brighton Rock

Album: Sheer Heart Attack (EMI, 1974) Chart pos:N/A



A few years ago I was watching live at Wembley on DVD with my parents when midway though the show there was a yawn-a-thon solo by Brian May which lasted nearly ten minutes, the song was listed as Brighton Rock solo, which is odd because the song Brighton Rock from Queen's third album is one of their most underrated songs. While the song begins and ends with Freddie Mercury's castrato vocals singing a song about a courting couple on a seaside holiday. The middle section consists of a long guitar solo,which surprisingly works quite well in the confines of the five minute song.

Here's the shamefully masturbatory guitar solo from their Wembley 86 concert.



www.megaupload.com/?d=7V2QLGEB

Joan Jett - Bad Reputation

Album: Bad Reputation (Boardwalk,1981) Chart pos:N/A



Say what you want about the Shrek films the first two had quite an impressive soundtrack, the films led me to discover Nick Cave, John Cale and Leonard Cohen. One of the songs I loved on the soundtrack was Bad Reputation by Joan Jett. To be honest before listening to it i thought she was a throwaway one-hit wonder but when i heard this song I was blown away. The song sounds a lot like the Ramones in the way that its loud and fast no frills rock n roll which is possibly the reason why i like it. It made me realise her music was allot more edgier than I originally thought.

www.megaupload.com/?d=EC6U5NAL

Os Mutantes - A Minha Menina

Album: Os Mutentes (Polydor,1968) Chart pos:N/A

 Like Syd gone bossanova.



Os Mutentes (The Mutants) were Brazil's answer to the psychedelic bands that emerged both sides of the Atlantic. Their early music sounded something akin to Pink Floyd circa Piper at the Gates of Dawn goes Bossanova. A Minha Menina is one of the stand out tracks from the album but is at the same time the most conventional, as other songs have a more experimental edge was the band experimented with some rather offbeat sounds. The band recorded an English version titled She's My Shoo Shoo in 1970 that languished in the vaults for 30 years before being released in 2000.



www.megaupload.com/?d=ZQK4B3UL

Patti Smith - Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Album: Twelve (Columbia,2007) Chart Pos: N/A



Patti Smith reminds me a bit Iggy Pop in the fact that she one of those artists whose appearance seem to be frozen in time. I saw a recent interview where she appeared to be dressed in the same attire she wore on the cover of her debut album Horses. In 2007 Patti Smith released a covers album called Twelve, anyone who listened to her wonderfully reinterpret classics such as Gloria and Land of a 1000 Dances were faced with a rather dull lifeless album which sounded more conservative than idiosyncratic. But despite this i actually liked her version of Tears for Fears Everybody Wants to Rule the World even though as covers go its not whats she's truly capable of, its still a solid cover version.

Deep Purple - Child in Time

Album: In Rock (Harvest,1970) Chart pos:N/A

Thieving bastards of the world unite.



I was looking at this article on the top five thieving bastards on pop music and amongst dross like Black Eyed Peas and (obviously) Andrew Lloyd Webber there were seminal bands like Led Zepplin and Deep Purple. For one of Deep Purple's many live staples in the early 70's Child in Time they half- inched the main organ riff from psych-poppers It's a Beautiful Day's Bombay Calling even blatantly admitting it in later years. Still bearing in mind the stolen organ riff the song is still a classic.

www.megaupload.com/?d=KCRNKAOH

Oh and here's the song where they stole the riff.

George Harrison - Wah Wah

Album: All Things Must Pass (Apple,1970) Chart Pos: N/A



Despite never being a massive Beatles fan I still occasionally listed to the odd album and some of the John, Paul and Georges solo stuff. An album that i totally forgot about until just a minute was George Harrison's first post-Beatles album which is generally regarded as a classic. The phrase 'flawed classic' is far closer to the truth due to its third disc of George and a few famous friends fucking around in the studio. Apart from that the first two discs (in vinyl terms)  are pretty solid songwriting wise. My favourite song (and one of the most overlooked) is Wah Wah possibly because its the song which has the most amount of Phil Spector's production trademarks. 

Frank Zappa - Flakes

Album: Shiek Yerbouti (Zappa, 1979) Chart pos:N/A



Shiek Yerbouti is the better of his later rock albums. Flakes is a standout track on an album brimming with standout tracks. In this track Zappa mocks lazy manual workers while guitarist Adrian Belew does an impressive impersonation of Bob Dylan.





www.megaupload.com/?d=HJX2R7KW

King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man

Album: In the Court of the Crimson King (EG,1969) Chart:N/A


Possibly the greatest song that Black Sabbath never wrote.



As much as I'm not a massive Prog Rock fan, King Crimsons music has dated reasonably well possibly because their best material was a pre-cursor allot of seventies hard rock. Even though ITCOTCK is a patchy album (anyone who can sit through 12 minute snooze-fest moonchild without dropping off the sleep deserves a medal) but theirs some real seminal moments on the album. 21st Century Schizoid Man the opening song is a mindblowing proto-metal jazz freakout that sounds ahead of its time.

Here's a documentary on their guitarist and sole founding member Robert Fripp, he's a tad creepy in serial killerish kind of way.

Love - Live and Let Live

Album: Forever Changes (Elektra,1967) Chart pos:N/A

Oh the snot hath caked against thy pants.



Forever Changes is in my opinion one of the greatest albums ever made, listening sounds like viewing the whole hippie movement die a slow death while getting front row seats. Beneath the occasional tweeness of the album, i came away with the impression that that all the late sixties managed to do was produce drug casualty after drug casualty. This can be seen on the track Live and Let Live where the lyrics seem to come out of some dark drug induced haze. Despite making a great album the band didn't have a happy ending with two members turning to crime by sticking up doughnut shops* and three members dying at a (relatively) young age.

*its a myth but it sounds good.


www.megaupload.com/?d=ZMHESVDF
Funnily enough one of my biggest regrets was never seeing Arthur Lee live before he passed on as he played in Somerset twice in 2005.

Cocteau Twins - Carolyns Fingers

Album: Blue Bell Knoll (4AD, 1988) Chart pos: N/A



Whenever this song appears on random on my mp3 player, I always listen to it all the way through. Ive always liked Liz Frazier's voice especially like on this song where she pulls her vocals up to the higher registers to the point where you think she could of made it as an opera singer. Some detractors have complained of the fact that her vocals are unintelligible (i think that's the point), but when their that good who gives a shit.

www.megaupload.com/?d=2gc3zbam

Radio 4 - Dance to the Underground

Album: Gotham (EMI,2002) Chart Pos:UK#94



Even though they weren't a particularly great band this song was possibly my introduction to post-punk music. I can remember hearing this song on XFM when i was eighteen and rushing out to buy the single. Even though they went on to do a few good songs like Absolute Affirmation and Eyes Wide Open, they faded from view in the mid-noughties. But by listening to this song i managed to discover great bands like Gang of Four and Public Image LTD (from which the band took the name from one of their songs).

www.megaupload.com/?d=G6LKO9AF 

Yellow Magic Orchestra - Rydeen

Album: Solid State Survivor (Alfa/A&M,1979) Chart pos:N/A



YMO are so revered in Japan that they were dubbed as their answer to Kraftwerk. Which isn't really fair as they sounded more like Giorgio Moroder if he discovered Japanese classical music. Even though they were poppier and less pared down than Kraftwerk they still weren't afraid of pushing boundaries (especially on their 1981 album Technodelic). The fact that their first two albums sound like video game music is that nearly every ten-a-penny video game composer in Japan has imitated their sound rather than the other way around.


www.megaupload.com/?d=9ogish0h

Funnily enough the tune was used in a coin op game in the early 80's.



..and used for a larger advert in Japan.

The Damned - In Dulce Decorum

Album: Anything (MCA,1986) Chart pos: UK#72




This little gem was featured in a Miami Vice episode (the one where Larry Fishbone is a bent prison guard) which is odd seeing a band such as The Damned was going through their goth phase which meant it contrasted heavily with the garish pastel suits and espadrilles.

In Dulce Decorum is a lost gem for their major-label era. Despite the overproduction which makes the band sound like some nondescript stadium rock band, it still holds up well.

Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies

Album: Billion Dollar Babies (Warner,1973) Chart pos: US#57



I was thinking to myself if Bill Hicks would of lived who would be the targets for his vitriol. I must admit i found it hilarious when he viciously attacked rock stars hawking products.I think one of the rock stars he would have laid into is his childhood idol Alice Cooper.




This is because typing in the words Alice, Cooper and Commercial into You Tube and their is numerous commercials starring the Coop everything ranging from golf clubs (pretty fucking obvious), television Sets, hotel chains, car tyres and stationary. Personally I don't see what the fuss is about and I must admit I find the one with Ronnie Corbett quite amusing.

In all honesty until recently I didn't think Alice Cooper would be my cup of tea until I read that he was a big influence on The Ramones and John Lydon so i decided to get Billion Dollar Babies and thought it was quite a good album. One of my favourite songs is the title track from the album where twee folkie Donovan does a surprisingly good vocal guest spot. Its enough to make anyone thing that he should of ditched being a folkie and embarked on a career in heavy rock instead.

Here's some Alice Cooper commercials.














And there's more from where they came from...

Neu! - Hero

Album: Neu! 75 (Brain,1975) Chart pos:N/A



Neu's third and final (official) album Neu! 75 was light years ahead of it's time predating post-punk by three years and Bowie's Berlin phase by two. Hero is borderline punk with its minimalistic thrashing guitars and nonsensical screamed vocals mixed with atmospheric keyboards for good measure. It sounds like a more harsher left-field approximation of what Roxy Music did on their first two albums. The original vinyl was two sides the first one continued from the ambient direction of the first two albums, while the second side experimented with a harder (but no less hypnotic sound).

www.megaupload.com/?d=KART5F4W

I discovered 7 Digital are selling thier entire back catalogue (including early live tracks and the final unofficial album Neu! 86) for only £6.99 which is a bit of a bargain as Amazon has it for twice as much.

http://www.7digital.com/artists/neu/neu-4/

Devo - Mongoloid

Album: Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are  Devo! (Warner, 1978) Chart pos:N/A

No thier not the flower pot men in boiler suits.


For a band that pissed off metalheads with thier cover of Satisfaction its a wonder that Devo is loved by punks and metalheads alike. Henry Rollins is a massive Devo fan even releasing some of thier albums on his Infinite Zero label when thier record label couldn't give a shit about releasing them on CD. A look on Spotify for weird Devo covers led me to some cover of Girl U Want by some obsure hardcore band and a slower version by Soundgarden. Rage Against the Machine and Nirvana also covered some of thier songs. The funniest though is a thrash metal cover of Mongoloid by Sepultura which is fucking odd (but not as odd as thier U2 cover).



But listening to Mongoloid from thier debut its easier to understand why punks liked Devo as in thier early  Devo's sound was raw and minimalistc as punk rock. But after thier third album Freedom of Choice they seemed to lean towards being a synth pop band rather than a rock band who used synths which was a pity.


www.megaupload.com/?d=8TNBEV1D

MGMT - Song for Dan Trecey

Album: Congratulations (Columbia, 2010) Chart Pos: N/A


MGMT's second album Congratulations was an album i expected to dislike, this is down to the fact that Oracular Spectacular was one of the most disappointing albums i ever bought and lets say was soon sold on EBay. Outside Time to Pretend and Electric Feel the only other song i liked was Weekend Wars which with its stylistic shifts kind of showcased the direction the band headed for their second album. With 2010's Congratulations they moved away from obvious radio hits. Despite going to extremes with Siberian Breaks which felt like many different songs shoddily thrown together the rest of the album worked. Song for Dan Treacy is an uptempo psychedelic number that pays tribute to the troubled Television Personalities front man is possibly the main standout track from the album.

Eric B. & Rakim - Paid In Full

Album: Paid in Full (4th & Broadway/Island, 1987)



One listen to Paid In Full and it's easy to realise where a great deal of modern day rappers from 50 Cent to Eminem pilfered their ideas from. Even though Paid in Full didn't shift a great deal of units it managed to inspire many MC's. Although i think the average Eminem fan may find Paid in Full a little to spartan for their tastes and i think Rakim's status is more of a rapper's rapper than a mainstream star.

www.megaupload.com/?d=l9wdawo4

Slowdive - Alison

Album: Sovulaki (Creation, 1993) Chart pos:N/A



In 1994 Shoegazing was dismissed as music for bourgeoisie students, much of this was down to the fact that by this time working-class bands like Pulp and Oasis were the order of the day. Looking back years after Britpop it's easy to see that the scene became too bloody conservative for its own good and deserved to die a swift death. Nowadays it seems that time has been quite kind to bands like Slowdive as the whole Shoegaze scene seems to be going for a revival and at a time where we've been spoon fed second rate Strokes copyists this can't be a bad thing. Alison from the 1993 album Sovulaki is one of their finest finest moment even though it sounds like nearly every other Shoegaze band with its reverby guitars and ethereal vocals it manages to be the nearest the band ever did to a genuine pop song. Unfortunately the band did one more album (1995's sparse Pgymalion) before splitting and reforming as folk/alt-country band Mojave 3.

Unfortunately the album is OOP at the time of writing but there is the possibility of their albums being re-released soon.

www.megaupload.com/?d=UHT2QJND

The Contours - A Little Misunderstnading

Album: N/A (Gordy,1966) Chart Pos: #85 US/ #31 UK (1970 re-issue)



The Contours were one of the multitude of Motown acts that slipped through the net. Their sole hit was 'Do you Love Me' which reached #4 in the US and the only other time they troubled the charts was with the same song more than a quarter of a century later after it was used in Dirty Dancing.  The thing is if it wasn't for the Northern Soul scene much of their oeuvre would have been forgotten. This number which was co-written by a teenage Stevie Wonder became a hit in the UK four years after its initial release due the fact that this song was a staple of Northern Soul all-nighters. It's a song that should have been big but for reasons unknown it slipped into obscurity.

Cymande - Brothers on the Slide

Album:Promised Heights (Janus,1974) Chart Pos:N/A

Like Curtis Mayfield gone rasta.



Cymande(pronounced Sah-mahn-day)came from Brixton via West Indies, their musical output was mostly ignored until the rare groves scene of the late 70's/early 80's. The song Brothers on the Slide has one of the funkiest bass lines ever committed to tape. Its no wonder that hip-hop acts like De La Soul and The Fugees went on to sample their material.

Unfortunately much of their materiel is OOP but some compilations available second-hand for under a tenner.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=wylxif0i

Suicide - Frankie Teardrop

Album Suicide (Red Star,1977) Chart Pos: You must be joking!



This is an odd post seeing that I've never listened to this song the whole way though. I usually get to the four minute mark when Alan Vega begins let out a high pitched scream over the minimalist electro, 9 times out of ten this scares the bejesus out of me and i reach for the stop button. From what I've heard after this point the ten minute epic becomes more of a primal scream therapy session caught on tape rather than a fully fledged song. That said Suicide's debut album isn't a bad album in a Lou Reed goes electro way but bloody hell is it claustrophobic.

http://rapidshare.com/files/9523706/Suicide__First_Album_.zip

Nolan Porter - Keep On Keeping On

Album: Nolan (Probe/ABC,1972) Chart pos:N/A




A while back when I went to see the documentary on Joy Division at the cinema there was a moment where the band described their attempts to get signed to a major label. The daftest moment was when some A&R guy from RCA tries to mould them into a soul band by making them play Nolan Porter's song Keep On Keeping On, a song which around this time was a popular song in Northern Soul circles. Bernard Sumner said the results were ridiculous as they tried to make Ian Curtis sound like James Brown. But it seems they took quite allot from this experience and the basis of the song Interzone from Unknown Pleasures is essentially the main riff of Keep on Keeping on.



The album Nolan has never been released on CD (hell there is even no allmusic listing) and vinyl copies are usually sold for over a hundred dollars and is usually snapped up by Zappa completests as the LP has the original members of the Mothers of Invention Jimmy Carl Black and Roy Estrada played on it. Its annoying that even the two cuts that he released from the album are non-existent on any in print northern soul compilation.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2AS0LHE1

Eddie Kendricks - People Hold On

Album: People Hold On.. (Motown, 1972) Chart pos:N/A



Ex-Temptation Eddie Kendricks recorded output has always been difficult to obtain until recently as about 90% or so was unavailable on CD until fans badgered the record company for a limited release (which is out of print now, but available to download). The album People Hold On.. has had something of a cult following and is regarded as a lost 70's soul classic. I first heard this song on a cheap funk compilation that I had bought in France about 4 years ago. The mix of tribal drumming and Eddie Kendricks plea for unity among fellow African-Americans is possibly the best track on the album. Unfortunately while the albums good nothing sounds as out there as the title track although proto-disco classic Girl You Need a Change of Mind nearly reaches the same heights.

RIP Eddie Kendricks (1939-1992)

http://rapidshare.com/files/105331962/Eddie_Kendricks__-_People_..._Hold_On.rar.html

Dion - Only You Know

Album Born to be With You (Warner, 1975) Chart Pos: N/A



As much as I don't like the Arctic Monkeys thier one saving grace is the fact that they have managed to turn on thier youthful audience on to this song from Dion's album Born to be With You. In some quaters the album is regarded as the Pet Sounds of the seventies. Unlike Pet Sound this album was buried in obscurity (as it was only released in the UK) for nearly thirty years. Much of its rediscovery was down to the fact that Pete Townsend has been raving about it for years. On Only you Know Know Dion sounds like someone whose lived though hard times and is trying to find light at the end of the tunnel. Reading about his road to recovery from drug addiction puts this song into some kind of context.

Heres the Artic Monkeys cover