Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
The Beatles
A Hard Day’s Night
(Parlophone, 1964)
Pop group as kiddie-friendly multi-media franchise. In a good way...
No apologies for another appearance by my 5-year-old, Sam, in this column, because if you ever get bored of the Beatles (not that I ever get bored of The Beatles) try viewing the entire phenomenon through the eyes of a kid. Not only do you get the best tunes written by anyone, ever; you get four (count 'em) discrete, supercool characters to cut out and keep, and an array of adventures, some real, others fictional, to boggle the mind. The 21st Century has a pat phrase for what the Beatles pioneered: the "immersive" entertainment experience.
My five year-old's favourite Beatles album is currently this one. Obviously that has something to do with the film, which has inspired a bout of 6am cap-wearing and mouth-organ-playing chez nous, and a worrying tendency to hail an unfortunate local pensioner, loudly and in public, as a "clean old man". But that's not in any way to denigrate the purely aural elements of the package. Beyond that chord, so startling that it seems to summon The '60s into existence, beyond even the sod-it-let's-start-with-the-best-bit perfection of Can't Buy Me Love, AHDN is an astonishing amalgam of rock'n'roll thrills, melodic ingenuity and Tin Pan Alley traditions, from the groove and attitude of You Can't Do That to the minimalist, faux-Latin swoon of And I Love Her. Only two years before the Beatles, having consumed all previous pop and found themselves sated, reinvented it all over again as sonic science, it's remarkable for its confidence in the human voice, a guitar or two and little else. So much subsequent pop feels cluttered, drowned, over-patina'd in comparison.
At the weekend, Sam saw Help! for the first time. On balance, he liked it even more than AHDN, but he had a concern. "Where's Paul's granddad?" he wondered. "Has he died?"
Danny Eccleston
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 15/02/2010
Further Listening
The Beatles – Help! (Parlophone, 1965)
The Monkees – The Monkees (RCA Victor, 1966)
Prince – Purple Rain (Warner Bros, 1984)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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