poet & interviewer
I’m going to say it: This is a perfect record. It’s like stepping into the world of Schoolhouse Rock and getting to live there, with all that sunshiny 70s soul. Why Phoebe Snow isn’t a household name can only be because she so strenuously resisted categorization.
What a killer record. Released in 1980, this album finds Bowie on very solid ground, cranking out left-of-center pop-rock hit after hit. You’ll find “Fashion” and “Ashes To Ashes” here, but every song could be a radio staple.
Huzzah! My copy of this record just arrived a few minutes ago. I haven’t even opened it yet, but I’m so excited to finally hear it. I heard an excerpt last year and immediately pre-ordered a copy.
I don’t know how this happened, but somehow I made it 41 years without ever listening to Graham Parker. I had a friend in Tucson who was into Parker, but I didn’t know this friend very long and moved before I listened to any of his records. Today I was flipping through the “P” bin at the store and came across this live solo album. I’m a sucker for records like this: electric guitar + voice + nothing else — think Billy Bragg and Warren Zevon. So this looked right up my alley. I’m writing as side one is finishing, and I really dig it.
This is my favorite Dire Straits record, followed closely by the live album Alchemy. I was introduced to this record in high school, sometime around 1988 or ’89, by Jeff Smith, who played guitar in a band with a bunch of my friends. Love Over Gold is, for me, the apex of Knopfler’s period of writing extended, complex songs for the band. This album is by turns haunting and lovely and thrilling, with plenty of guitar heroics throughout.
