SLAYER - REIGN IN BLOOD

ARTIST: Slayer

ALBUM: Reign In Blood
RELEASED: October 1986

Angel of Death/Piece by Piece/Necrophobic/Altar of Sacrifice/Jesus Saves/
Criminally Insane/Reborn/Epidemic/Postmortem/Raining Blood

An album needn’t be the best example of something to be deemed a classic, nor even the first to do what it does, but it has to have captured the imagination, and somehow proved itself to be ‘important’.

And important is basically how one might best describe Slayer’s Reign in Blood. Revered as one of the definitive moments in thrash metal,[1] and even as the greatest metal album of all time by some, Reign in Blood is without a doubt a very good album. However, it is not the greatest heavy metal album ever made. Nor it is the best trash album ever released. In fact, it’s not even the best Slayer album (Paranoid, Rust In Peace, South of Heaven, before you ask).

What it is, however, is a stone-cold classic, respected by metal-heads and (somewhat amazingly) mainstream critics alike.

Raining Blood

Raining blood from a lacerated sky
Bleeding its horror
Creating my structure
Now I shall reign in blood 

1985-86 was the golden era of thrash metal, with all the genre’s major players peaking within a year or so of each other. There was Metallica’s epic Master of Puppets, Megadeth’s vitriolic Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? and Anthrax’s personality packed Spreading the Disease (if it sounds like I'm damning Anthrax with faint praise it's only because I don't think they were that good). Throw in an endless stream of underground classics also released during that period and it's hard to imagine a single album setting itself apart so thoroughly as Reign in Blood seems to have in the eyes of many.

But it did. How?

Music isn't a competition for me. I certainly think some bands are better than other similar acts, but I'd never argue that is what defines them. Pearl Jam are good because they're good, not because they happen to be a shitload better than Creed. However, there has always been a tendency amongst metal fans to try to quantitatively assess the speed, heaviness and musicianship of bands - to rank and define them. The thrash scene was defined in part by being heavier than the hair-metal scene. Motorhead were defined in part by being faster than Black Sabbath. Reign in Blood holds its place in people's hearts because established wisdom has it as being faster, heavier and darker than anything that came before it.

Thing is though, it really wasn't. Sure, it was darker and harder than anything the other 'Big 4' bands were doing at the time, and sure it was played so fast the final recordings of the ten songs set for inclusion clocked in at less than 29 minutes. Its solos are abrasive squalls, it’s lyrics are uncompromisingly unpleasant. It’s a distillation of what thrash metal set out to be. But was it really that much heavier than what was happening at the time? I'd argue not.

Angel of Death

Apart from anything else, fellow first-wave thrash band Exodus's 1985 release Bonded by Blood is arguably every bit as heavy, as were European releases of the same year from the likes of Kreator and Celtic Frost. And besides, the sort of extremity in evidence on a mid-80s thrash album has long been put in the shade by proponents of death-metal, black-metal and the like – so why did Reign in Blood have such an impact at the time, and why has it endured?

A big part of it I think is Rick Rubin's production. Reign in Blood just sounds good, and in this genre at that time, that was a big deal. Early to mid-80s metal bands pushing the envelope were doing so on a shoe-string budget, with producers, engineers and equipment often ill-suited to realizing their visions. Many of the great early thrash and death metal albums suffered from horribly chaotic productions, with little or no low-end, poorly mixed vocals and guitars that sounded more like angry bees than hammers of the gods. Of course, this was all part of the genre's underground charm, but it diluted the intensity of the music. What set Reign in Blood apart was a clean, clear precise sound that, perhaps for the first time, truly captured a thrash-metal band in full flight. Quite a calling card for a producer who had previously produced the Beastie Boys and would go on to work with everyone from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers to Johnny Cash.

For all respect you cannot lust 
In an invisible man you place your trust
Indirect dependency
Eternal attempt at amnesty

That's not all of course. Working within their limitations (with the exception of drummer Dave Lombardo, no member of Slayer is particularly noteworthy as a musician), Slayer released an album of singular focus. On the one hand, playing as fast as you can for the sake of it, and being as offensive as you can be for the fun of it, may be a terribly self-indulgent approach to making music, but the fact is that Reign in Blood is otherwise an extremely restrained album in its way. There's nothing superfluous in sound or arrangements, no riff that overstays its welcome, no hooks that are fallen back on one too many times. Just what needed playing, played fast.

My rage will be unleashed again

Burning the next morn

Death means nothing there is no end

I will be reborn

Ultimately Reign in Blood sounds like nothing that came before, and an awful lot that came since. The squalling solos. The chaotic bursts of speed that crash headlong into inexorable, juddering grooves. The disjointed lyrics that sound like some sort of demented haiku. The shouted, hardcore-style vocal approach. There’s a little bit of Reign in Blood in half the metal albums made after 1986, from the death metal genre (pretty much in its entirety) through to Pantera and more contemporary acts such as Slipknot. For as great as some of the bands it influenced are though, its hard not to listen to Reign in Blood and feel that, no matter how fast or how heavy they may be, those acts are a dilution of something that had already been done.

Criminally Insane

At their best, that was what separated Slayer from the pack, and what makes this album a classic. It’s a distillation of everything its genre was about and a foundation for much of what was to come. In a genre often vilified for self-indulgence, it’s an album that carries no fat. 1988s South of Heaven was better. It was more nuanced, more varied, and it rewards repeated listening far more thoroughly. However, it’s not nearly as pure a statement of intent. 

But then, very few albums in any genre ever have been.

 Get Thrashed - Documentary

Raining Blood - Tori Amos

Next Edition: A golden god across the water.

---

[1] Thrash metal could be a blog post in its own right, but for the uninitiated, it was a sub-genre of metal that first flourished in the early-mid 80s. Building on the work of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Motorhead and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, bands sought to develop a faster, more aggressive sound influenced in part by the simultaneous evolution of hardcore punk. Thrash would take hold in the mid-80s as the established alternative to more pop-focused hard rock of Motley Crue et al. A remarkably well-defined genre that most notably flourished in California, New York and Germany, most proponents were quite happy to self-identify as being thrash. It was led by a well-defined big 4 consisting of Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer. For an excellent documentary (one of the best I've seen on any scene/genre), check out Get Thrashed.

MILES DAVIS - BITCHES BREW

ARTIST: Miles Davis

ALBUM: Bitches Brew
RELEASED: April 1970

DISC ONE

Pharaoh's Dance/Bitches Brew

DISC TWO

Spanish Key/John McLaughlin/Miles Runs The Voodoo Down/Sanctuary

I'm really not qualified to write about this album. I mean, I suppose you could argue that I haven't really been qualified to critique any of the albums I've covered thus far. I can't play bass like John Entwhistle. I can't write songs like Bruce Springsteen. Hell, I can't even sing as well as Johnny Thunders. But I can understand their albums. I know at least a little bit of what they're about, and I have some grasp of what makes them great. Bitches Brew, on the other hand, is a great album precisely because, when you get right down to it, I barely understand a damn thing that's going on.

If you're a heavy-duty jazz aficionado, you're probably rolling your eyes right now. This is a landmark album, worthy of an informed critique. But I came to Bitches Brew as a rock fan, and it is as a rock fan that I have listened to it, and learned to love it. All 94 minutes of it.

Miles Davis and John McLaughlin in 1985

It's not that I didn't enjoy jazz before this album, mind you. I regularly listened to Mingus and Coltrane's more accessible material. It's just that, while I enjoyed it, I never really delved a lot deeper. The idea of more experimental, boundary-pushing jazz never appealed in the slightest. However, read enough guitar magazines and the name John McLaughlin will start coming up again and again. A jazz guy mentioned in the same breath as Hendrix, McLaughlin sat on the edge of my consciousness for a long time. That one jazz guy a Van Halen fan might care to mention. Finally I decided I'd better pay attention, and I bought this, one of his most renowned performances on what I knew was one of Miles Davis' landmark albums.

And I hated it.

I mean, I could hear the talent. Helen Keller could have heard the talent when Miles Davis played. But I couldn't hear a hook or a groove, and certainly not a tune, that really captured me. Ostensibly a 'fusion' album, I couldn't hear what was being fused, or to what effect. It just sounded like a particularly unfocussed, noodling jazz album. I tried, and at times I could almost 'appreciate' it. But 'like' it? No. No matter how many chances I gave it. The album's reputation, it's amazing cover art, the musicians playing on it, all promised an almost mystical experience, but all I got from it was confused.

And then, quite by accident, it clicked.

I'd purchased a Miles Davis compilation – two discs I assumed would introduce me to some of the more palatable sounds that defined this earlier career. And they did, and I liked it. It was pleasant. Challenging, but with enough familiarity to its basic forms that I could relax into it. Often I listened to it at work to block out office noise, not really concentrating, just enjoying the the music. But one day, I was walking home, listening to the cool sounds of Miles, when I heard something new. A groove I hadn't really picked up on before, and tumbling after it was an intensity and darkness at odds with the rest of the material on the compilation. This was amazing.

This, of course, was Miles Runs the Voodoo Down, the penultimate track on Bitches Brew.

Miles Runs The Voodoo Down

And suddenly the album I'd left gathering dust unfolded before me. I still didn't understand all of it (still don't), but I began to feel like I was at least starting to hear it. McLaughlin's biting guitar, so different from the smooth muted tones of any jazz guitar I'd heard before, began to sound purposeful where once it had seemed random, cutting in and out, lending a real edge and almost psychedelic element to proceedings. Miles' runs and flourishes began to communicate something more than just virtuosity, and the rhythm section and electric pianos bubbled and boiled like the titular brew (at times as menacingly as the titular bitch). There are hints of something  spiritual and African in the sound that I'm not sure I can articulate. Perhaps it's the influence of the cover art, or perhaps the sound, more free and more primal than any other jazz I'd heard, and very nearly as mystical as I'd been expecting it would be.

Or maybe it's just that the musicianship was beyond anything I'd ever heard outside of a pure jazz setting? There's a t-shirt out there proclaiming “Miles ate rock-stars for breakfast”. Ridiculous on the one hand, but not without some merit on the other. There are going to be few, if any, instances on this blog where I discuss better musicians. There are few, if any, rock musicians who could walk so far beyond a standard I-IV-V progression without it all falling apart on them. Of course, that the cream of the jazz crop could outplay the jam bands of the day is hardly surprising. What is surprising is that they also manage to create something every bit as darkly psychedelic as any of those bands could. 

Bitches Brew

Bitches Brew was recorded in the same era Gram Parsons was chasing a sound he called Cosmic American Music, but, with all due respect to Parson's country-rock pedigree, there's not much that's more cosmic than hearing America's first art-form take a trip to Africa via Mars. There seems to have been a clear intent to create something new - to challenge an old audience, appeal to a new  one, and that push beyond the boundaries of a genre Davis had already been to the edge of. It isn't rock, or funk, but it isn't quite jazz either. Or, at least, not just jazz. Certainly, the music on Bitches Brew doesn't conjure an image of slick besuited jazzmen in a smokey basement speakeasy. In fact, not knowing any better, it would be hard to imagine what the players look like. Alien, maybe?

Of course, the album isn't all virtuosity. There's some trickery at work too. Parts of the album were pieced together in studio. Commonplace today, but less so in 1970. To purists it may have seemed like cheating that tracks were cut, spliced and tweaked, but I can't help but feeling like it is one more ingredient of the brew, a piece of a puzzle for the listener to figure out. At the very least, I like to imagine Miles in the studio saying “Fuck it, let's do that, they won't know what the hell we're doing”.

Dogfish Head's Bitches Brew

(if it is as complex as the album, you won't want four)

So I heard the genius at last. But did I hear a perfect album? Sometimes. When the moment is right, there's not much that can match it. For all its highbrow qualities, it basically kind of rocks. At other times though, it can still sound a little meandering. Miles Runs the Voodoo Down never fails to stop me in my tracks, but depending on my mood, the 20 minutes of Pharaoh's Dance or the 27 minutes of the title track can be transcendental or, well, 27 freakin' minutes long. Bitches Brew was not universally acclaimed by critics upon its release. It was called obscure, difficult, unfocussed. Even 'noise' by some purists. And I can understand why. It is all those things in a lot of ways.

But, for me, Bitches Brew is also an object lesson in how you don't always hear everything an album has to offer on the first listen, or even the hundredth. It gives lie to the myth a fair album review can always be pulled out of the hat in the week between a promo-copy arriving and the printing press firing up. Many came to realize this, and Bitches Brew is now considered a classic, although grudgingly by some I suspect. 


Regardless, its value for me is not so much in the music, great as it is, but in the lesson that sometimes you get the music, sometimes you've just got to sit back and let the music get you.

Next Edition: To hell and back in 28 minutes.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - NEBRASKA

ARTIST: Bruce Springsteen

ALBUM: Nebraska

RELEASED: September 1982

Nebraska/Atlantic City/Mansion on the Hill/Johnny 99/Highway Patrolman/

State Trooper/Used Cars/Open All Night/My Father's House/Reason to Believe

Everything dies baby that's a fact,

But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back.

Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty,

And meet me tonight in Atlantic City.

Once upon a time I knew (via a music discussion forum) a guy called Will. Biggest music geek I've ever crossed paths with. Think Rob from High-Fidelity. Punk, metal, indie, goth, you name it, he probably had the Japanese import on coloured vinyl. He made me feel positively normal in my obsession. More importantly, when I moved to a new town and knew nobody who was going to gigs and checking out new bands, it was people like Will and websites like those we frequented that gave me an outlet to discuss my love of music and the big issues like whether the third Skid Row album was really any good or not. Knowing people like him is part of why I'm writing a blog like this.

Only thing is, he didn't really like Bruce Springsteen, at least, not really. A failing in my mind, but it takes all kinds I guess. Will's reasoning was that he couldn't connect with Springsteen's story-telling approach to songwriting. It didn't ring true to him and he much preferred artists who took a more 'personal' approach to their craft. Fair enough (I guess), except that he loved Nebraska.

That's right. Nebraska. An album rich with characters like Johnny 99 and the chicken-man. An album of acoustic demos that is as close to a collection of short-stories as it is a collection of songs. On the face of it, that's a fairly contradictory position to hold for a guy who put a fair amount of thought into the music he liked.

Atlantic City

(one of the best songs ever, by anyone)

However, I've always felt that that the apparent contradictions in people's tastes can teach us a lot about both them and the artists in we spend our time contemplating. And since this isn't a blog about people I've met through the internet, let's think about Nebraska and its place in the Springsteen catalogue...

It's not surprising that someone who is otherwise not a huge Springsteen fan might still love Nebraska. Musically, its sparse acoustic approach – no keyboards, no drums, no electric guitar - is the antithesis of the E-Street Band wall of sound which dominated Springsteen's prior albums. Only Atlantic City and Johnny 99 have any sort of propulsion to them. The rest are folkier tunes - haunting, lyrically dense and emotionally intense.  It contains some fantastic songs, but to claim, as some do, that it is Springsteen's best? I'm unconvinced. Listening to Springsteen to enjoy slow, dark, maudlin songs is a little like reading Playboy for the articles. Sure, they're actually pretty good, but if they were really what I wanted I'd have just bought an issue of Time Magazine (or perhaps a Leonard Cohen album).

Sheriff when the man pulls that switch sir,
And snaps my poor neck back.
You make sure my pretty baby,
Is sittin right there on my lap.

Having said that, I can understand why Will might have been able to enjoy the story-telling on Nebraska more than he enjoyed the not entirely dissimilar tales that populate Springsteen's E-Street Band albums. The dark, claustrophobic feel of the sparse arrangements and Springsteen's restrained vocal approach complement the lyrics superbly, making the fictions presented all the more believable, the stories seemingly more personal as the gap between singer and listener is lessened by the intimacy of the recordings. Would the chorus to Atlantic City be as heartbreaking with Little Steven's wailing guitar and a Clarence Clemons sax solo? Would a rolling drum-fill make us think any more deeply about the plight of the titular character in Johnny 99? Probably not.

Johnny 99

(also look up the great versions by Johnny Cash and Los Lobos)

As effective as it may be though, the acoustic approach taken on Nebraska means that a number of the characteristics that, to my mind, make Springsteen great in the first place are missing. In a world of po-faced wannaDylans, Springsteen was always the singer-songwriter who wasn't afraid to rock out. Or the rocker that wasn't afraid to densely pack his lyrics. An acoustic album shifts him firmly into the already crowded singer-songwriter camp. As a result, Nebraska is an album a number of other artists might have made (albeit probably not as well). Born To Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, on the other hand, are albums no other artist could have made.

An extension of this is the fact that in presenting such serious songs in such a serious fashion, Springsteen is unable to utilise one of his greatest tricks. You see, it's not like much of his catalogue isn't fairly bleak, but Springsteen has an unequalled ability to present dark lyrical themes in poppy or anthemic contexts as if it is the most logical thing in the world. It's no wonder people so regularly misinterpret Born in the USA when they hear that fist-pumping chorus. And Hungry Heart? That's got to be the jauntiest song ever written about a man walking out on his family. This is one of Springsteen's greatest gifts as a songwriter and arranger. Another of those things that separates him from the pack, and another thing you won't find on Nebraska.

Radio's jammed up with gospel stations,
Lost souls callin' long distance salvation.
Hey Mr DJ woncha hear my last prayer,
Hey ho rock 'n roll deliver me from nowhere.

Ultimately, bar a couple of the strongest tunes, when I hear Nebraska I still feel like a lot of fans must have at the time: This is nice and all, but it's not really the full package. I'm glad it was released in its stripped back acoustic form. As an exception to the rule, it strengthens the Springsteen catalogue. You can play it at times where three guitars, two keyboards and a saxophone don't suit your mood. As a one-off therefore, it's a very worthwhile album. But it feels like a side-project.

In my experience, people who rank Nebraska as Springsteen's best are often people who were never as taken by his other work. In thinking about it, I understand where they are coming from, and where Will was coming from. The things that light my fire when it comes to Springsteen obviously didn't appeal to him in the same way, and an opportunity to hear the songwriter devoid of his rock band trappings opened him up to an artist he was otherwise not so enamored with. It's an interesting example of how one atypical album in a catalogue can serve to illuminate the artist's catalogue as a whole. And, despite my misgivings, it really is a great album. In fact to present my own contradictory opinion, it is better than its follow-up Born in the USA, the full band mega-hit packed with all the things I've just told you define Springsteen.

I guess what I'm really trying to say with all of this is, we miss you Will.

Reason to Believe

-Aimee Mann & Michael Penn

Atlantic City

-The Hold Steady

(one of my favorite of the current crop of obviously Springsteen inspired acts, with a cover that
reworks the original quite significantly, as covers of such bare-bones songs often do)

Next edition: Miles runs the voodoo down.

THE WHO - QUADROPHENIA

ARTIST: The Who

ALBUM: Quadrophenia

RELEASED: October 1973

DISC 1

I Am The Sea/The Real Me/Quadrophenia/Cut My Hair/The Punk and the Godfather/I'm One/
The Dirty Jobs/Helpless Dancer (Roger's theme)/Is It In My Head/I've Had Enough

DISC2

5:15/Sea and Sand/Drowned/Bell Boy (Keith's theme)/Doctor Jimmy (John's theme)/
The Rock/Love, Reign O'er Me (Pete's theme)

Can you see the real me,

Can you?

Okay, so starting out a blog centred on classic albums with a piece on The Who is not really a great example of delving deep into the crates. However, Quadrophenia is a less discussed and appreciated album than it’s reputation amongst die-hards might suggest. Who’s Next got the Classic Albums treatment (a fascinating episode, incidentally), Tommy received more mainstream success as a rock opera over the years, and Live at Leeds is widely recognised as one of the greatest examples of a live album ever released. In such company, the comparatively hitless double-album Pete Townshend once referred to as “the best I will ever write” often gets lost in the shuffle.

It’s an album that fascinates me though. It’s dark and it’s violent, it is progressive rock in its scope and punk rock in its attitude. It’s also an album I’d never sat down and really listened to start to finish until very recently, so it is one of the very few ‘great albums’ I could really come at with a fresh set of ears, and that seemed like the right way to kick this blog off.

More importantly than all that, however is the simple fact that Pete Townshend is right. Quadrophenia is, by some margin, the best thing he and The Who have ever done. It's not so much a snapshot of the vision, fury and musicianship that defined the band as it is the whole damn roll of film.

I'm dressed right for a beach fight,
But I just can't explain,
Why that uncertain feeling is still
Here in my brain.

I’m not a fan of concept albums as a general rule. Too often the concept seems to be a contrivance to inspire song-writing, rather than a product of inspired song-writing, and the stories told are so often either too simplistic to engage anyone over the age of 12, or too complex to possibly be fitted into a suite of songs.

On paper, Quadrophenia could fall into either camp. Our anti-hero is a young man named Jimmy (coughHoldenCaufieldcough) struggling with four distinct personalities (i.e. suffering the titular disorder) loosely based on the four members of the Who – the tough-guy (Daltrey), romantic (Enthwistle), lunatic (Moon) and angst ridden hypocrite (Townshend – who at least serves himself the proverbial burnt pork-chop as writer). The listener follows Jimmy's voyage to self discovery against a backdrop of rocker vs mod violence, drug consumption and youthful frustration. It is not, it would be fair to say, a comedy. In both setting and characters it's particularly English however, at a time when the Rolling Stones were off to the Kentucky Derby and Led Zeppelin were on the road to Mordor (both literally and figuratively it turns out). This doesn't mean it is without heavy handed Hollywood moments though, with the resolution, which sees young Jimmy reaching epiphany while all at sea (literally) proving somewhat trite in the cold light of day.

It's all logical topic matter for a rock opera/concept album (at least when compared to the insanity Genesis were concocting at the same time) but until recently I'd always been somewhat of a doubter. Isn't that all just My Generation writ large?! And aren't things better when they're not spelled out?! Spending 17 tracks saying what you'd already been able to say in a three minute song seemed more Andrew Lloyd Webber than rock n roll to me.

From the get-go however, Quadrophenia manages to dance past disaster. The opening sequence of I Am the Sea, The Real Me and Quadrophenia take the listener from a hippy dippy introduction of ocean sounds and brief refrains, through a shit-kicking rock tune that introduces us to our protagonist and his troubled mind, before dropping the listener back into an instrumental that serves to conclude what is essentially the album's overture. It’s an intriguing beginning that hints at both the conceptual depths of the album to come and the potential for some go-for-the-throat rock n roll.

I Am the Sea/The Real Me 

(the rocking starts at the 2 minute mark for you ADD kids)

Any album that sprawls across four sides of vinyl (or, ummm, 187.1 megabytes of hard-drive when ripped at 320 kbps), needs more than a snappy opening sequence, and it’s the wealth of great tunes that really make the album. Nothing else rocks with quite the abandon of The Real Me, but there's an intesnity and hint of violence about so much of what the Who do, and it's on display here, along with more tender moments and some darkly comical asides. And all of this is sold superbly by Roger Daltrey. There may be four sides to Jimmy's personality, but there's only one voice, and it is Daltrey's versatility that enabled Townshend to realise his vision. Alice Cooper may be the great character of rock n roll, but Daltrey is the preeminent actor – delivering other people's words in other people's voices with absolute conviction. He can, you know, sing okay too I suppose.

I'm the new president,

And I grew, and I bent.

Don't you know?

Don't it show?

I'm the punk with the stutter.

And the playing? There's synths, piano and horns all over the place fleshing things out, but it is still Entwhistle’s bass-playing that always astounds me. Listen to anything he does and tell me how you get from good old-fashioned root-note chugging and walking bass-lines to THAT?! Throw in the dervish of fills and crashes that is Keith Moon and you’ve got a rhythm section that... Scratch that, you've got the rhythm section. It’s a foundation that allows Pete Townshend to sit back a little further than most guitarists of the era, often filling out the songs as required, rather than driving them along with Zeppelinesque riffing or a psychedelic wall of sound. It’s a deceptively simple approach that works wonders in a band of such capable, complementary musicians. Sadly, Townshend disciples often miss the point and wind up sounding tediously like Paul Weller – a crime for which only Paul Weller has any excuse, and even then not much of one.

5:15/Sea and Sand

It's not easy going though. A moment’s inattention and I’m scratching my head wondering what the hell Daltrey is on about now, and there are a number of tracks it’s hard to imagine working outside of this album. An hour and a bit tracing someone’s mental malfunctions is not necessarily fodder for repeated listening either (see also: Chinese Democracy). Conversely, some of the lighter moments do veer worryingly close to an impression of musical theatre.

However, while Townshend’s artistic vision (and demented single-mindedness) would occasionally derail the band, Quadrophenia holds itself together. Songs that might have been consigned to the b-sides bin on another recording session are given value by the story, and the strength of the performances ensures that the momentum, both conceptually and musically, is never lost.

At the end of the day it’s that flirtation with the insufferable, and that willingness to risk falling down that makes Quadrophenia for me. The world would be a fairly awful place if everybody tried to make albums like this, but on this occasion the play-write is so on form, the players hitting their marks so perfectly that Quadrophenia wound up an album no other band could have created, more than earning its seat at the big table with anything any of their contemporaries achieved.

Love Reign O'er Me

Next Edition: You best believe I'm from New York City!