"Harvest" by Neil Young (February, 1972)

Brad's Take:

Neil Young reminds me a lot of Bob Dylan, but with a better voice. This album's folk/country acoustic-ness and frequent harmonica usage is pretty much what I'm basing that comparison on. One of my favorite parts about Harvest was Young's vocals. I like his voice. They aren't perfect, by any means, but they're smooth, genuine, and not hard at all to listen to.

The orchestration on "A Man Needs a Maid" is beautiful. The strings and bells are so powerful and dramatic. It's definitely one of my favorites on this record. "There's A World" is pretty similar to that song too. More beautiful orchestration coming in and out, going up and down. It takes you on an adventure, and strays from the typical acoustic folky-ness of the majority of the tracks on here.

Most of the songs are pretty slow, but it picks up a bit in "Are You Ready for the Country?" and includes some wicked slide-guitar riffage. "Alabama" is another one that picks the tempo up a bit (but only as much as you'd probably expect from Neil Young). That song even introduces distorted electric guitar to the record. It's a great song. One of my favorites on Harvest.

One thing that bothers me about older records is how they thought that adding a single live track into the tracklist randomly was a good idea. "The Needle and the Damage" is a good song, and it's a good performance of the song, but it really throws off the flow having the distraction of a crowd applauding on just one song in the middle of an otherwise completely studio recording. Neil Young wasn't the only artist that did this though, so I can't give him too much crap for making that decision, but it's just something that bothers me on some older albums.

So many fantastic classic artists released albums in 1972. It's interesting that Harvest was the best-selling of that year. They had good taste though because this really is a great album. Nice job, Mr. Young.

Dad's Take:

Harvest was inescapable the year I turned eleven. Even for us AM-radio-listening kids. This was largely due to the hugeness of "Heart of Gold," which I'm pretty sure was playing on one Bay Area radio station or another at just about any time. To say that song was big is like saying you can see a Wal-Mart every once in a while when you're driving down a freeway. Young would hate that comparison, but it's kkind of fitting.

Young was apparently surprised by the success of this record, and didn't really like being put into the mainstream in such a big way. His whole career has been a battle between success and freedom.

"Heart of Gold" might be the monster hit on this record, but it's not the only good song, and maybe not even the best. I really like the opener, "Out on the Weekend," which tells the story (or a version of it) of Young's move to LA from Canada. He tells that story in other songs as well, but this one is especially good.

"A Man Needs A Maid," quickly turns from a mellow singer-songwriter song to lush orchestration, almost a magnum opus. "Are You Ready for the Country" is a bit of upbeat fun. "Old Man" has become one of Young's standards, an unforgettable and poignant song that reminds me Cat Stevens' "Father and Son," except only from the kid's point of view. It's still a great song, even now that I am the old man, looking back at kids who aren't that different than I was, but who don't always want to believe it. "There's A World" opens with a complete change of place, with timpani and a big sound, and then moving into another symphonic mini-suite. And, of course, "Alabama" and "The Needle and the Damage Done" have become classic Neil Young songs, and for good reason. "Words (Between the Lines of Age)" is a big finish, a long, slow rocker.

Start to finish, this is a solid album, a true classic, and one of the most enduring records in a year full of classics. It's hard to do better.

"Something/Anything?" by Todd Rundgren (February 1972)

Dad's Take:

This may be the ultimate "studio hermit" album. It's a long double album, clocking in at almost an hour and a half, with the three of the four sides recorded by Todd Rundgren all by himself, playing every instrument, much of it in a home studio.

What strikes me about this record is the variety of styles. In addition to the straight up pop hits "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw the Light," the album has harder rock, singer/songwriter fare, and experimental studio noodling.

In a collection this big, one would hope for some great songs, and it doesn't disappoint. There are a lot of highlights. In addition to the hits, I've always been fond of "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference." "The Night the Carousel Burnt Down," is also very good, showing humor, pathos, and Rundgren's studio talents. On the heavier side, "Little Red Lights" stands out to me.

It's easy to see why this album makes our list, as well as placing at 173 in Rolling Stones list of the top 500 albums. It is loaded with good-to-great songs. That most of it was recorded by one man alone is pretty amazing. On the other hand, despite the variety of material, it sometimes suffers slightly from the sameness that is perhaps inevitable in a solo project of this length. Between several highlights and a few lowlights is a large pack of songs that don't stand out much either way. That's not to say they are bad, just that there are so many songs. Sometimes it feels like the album should be called "Something/Anything/Everything."

This album was a tremendous effort, and the work paid off. This is obviously a labor of love. It's enjoyable, sometimes great, and seldom dull. Todd Rundgren's enormous talent and range is showcased well. An excellent album all around. It's just, there's so much of it.

Brad's Take:

The problem with super long albums is that they're... well... super long. It's hard to get through an hour and a half worth of music. Something/Anything? is no exception, unfortunately. This album feels the same as other double albums; the top quarter of it is really enjoyable, the middle half is when you realize you've been daydreaming for about 20 minutes and can't remember the last 10 songs you listened to, and then the last quarter of the songs is just you impatiently waiting for it all to end.

Obviously, this didn't grab my attention much. After 5 or 6 songs, I knew what the rest of the album was going to sound like. There isn't much different from song to song, probably because Rundgren wrote and recorded every instrument on 3/4 of this record. It all just blends together, with a couple great songs sprinkled throughout.

There's no doubt that this guy is extremely talented. Being able to write and record quality songs like this is a great accomplishment, but this would have been much more enjoyable if it had been cut down to his best 12/13 songs, rather than making it a 25-song double-album. But people were into that kind of thing back then, I guess.

"It Wouldn't Have Made a Difference" and "Couldn't I Just Tell You" were the ones I liked the most out of all of these. But don't assume that those are the only two good songs. All of the others are very similar to those two, but those are just the ones that caught my attention the most, for whatever reason.

The last 1/4 of the album is different though. He has a band with him and you can totally hear a change in sound on these songs. They're good, but it didn't feel new enough for me to separate them from the rest of the pack.

Like I already said, Rundgren is obviously very talented, but this is just too much of a (pretty) good thing. It's not bad, it's not great, it's just too much.

"Pink Moon" by Nick Drake (February, 1972)

Brad's Take:

This is a complete change of pace, compared to that ELP album we reviewed just before this.

Pink Moon was Nick Drake's final studio album before he died of overdosing on depression medication at only 26 years old. Drake decided to make a solo acoustic album this time around, with just him and the sound engineer in the recording studio. The studio was booked during the day so in just two nights, Nick and his engineer would go in to record at 11pm and record during the night. It's pretty crazy to think that in just two nights, they recorded an album that became so influential.

Nick Drake is one of the many artists that got really popular posthumously. You can hear his influence in lots of current artists, such as Mike Kinsella and Mark Kozelek, especially with the use of alternate guitar tunings, which Nick Drake really liked using. Nick was self-taught on the guitar, and when he was trying to do complex guitar chords, he'd experiment with tuning certain strings differently in order to be able to play those chords easier. His guitar playing on this album is really lovely.

It's hard to name specific songs that I like because I really liked them all. One of the more interesting ones though is "Know." It repeats one little guitar riff over and over throughout the song.

I'm glad this album is on our list. Otherwise, I may have never listened to it. Everything about Pink Moon is beautiful. I really enjoyed it, and will definitely come back to it, and will add it to my ever-growing list of albums to find for my vinyl collection.

Dad's Take:

If you thought Joni Mitchell's Blue was personal, wait until you hear this.

This album is just downright shy. Nick Drake went into the studio after hours with nobody else but his engineer and recorded it without the help of any other musicians. The benefit of this technique is that the record is completely bereft of any trendy contemporary production or musical influences. A guy with his guitar is pretty much always going to sound timeless, and so this album sounds as 2015 as it does 1972. Which is interesting, considering how much better known Drake is now than he ever was when he was alive.

Each song is beautiful, with poetic (if sometimes hard to understand) lyrics and gorgeous guitar playing with interesting tunings. Because of the stripped-down recording technique, each song blends with the others, making it difficult for a reviewer to single out individual tracks, but creating a 28-minute musical painting that gets richer each time you examine it.

Drake's life was, by all accounts, pure torture, but I'm glad he had the strength to share his work. Pity that this remarkable artist died without ever knowing how beloved his music would become, and how much he would influence songwriters for several decades to come.

"Pictures at an Exhibition" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer (November, 1971)

Dad's Take:

ELP's take on Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition demonstrates simultaneously everything that was right and wrong with progressive rock in 1971.

On the one hand, the band brilliantly pulls off their attempt to show that a well-known classical piece can be performed live by a rock band, and adapted to fit that genre. The musicianship shown on this album is amazing, and the creativity to arrange, adapt, and conform the piece is undeniable. The original classical piece remains not only recognizable but more or less intact, and the original bits that are added, such as the lovely Greg Lake piece, "The Sage," fit in nicely.

On the other hand, the album is a pretty good example of why the "pretentious" label is often applied to prog rock. Taking an orchestral piece and converting it to (often) keyboard, bass, and drums is a ballsy move, a prime example of the audacious self-important attitude of prog rock, and one that not all rock fans are going to appreciate. It undeniably exceeds the usual limits of both rock and roll music and the classical source. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on the listener's preferences. Almost certainly, classical music aficionados will find this to be a sacrilege, even offensive, while rock fans will find moments of brilliance but will possibly be overwhelmed, even befuddled, by parts of the album.

Me, I like a good prog rock album now and then, and this is the first one I ever purchased. At the time, I thought it was a little weird and I wasn't sure what to think of a lot of it back when I got it. I appreciate it more now, but it has never become a favorite. I like ELP's more original Brain Salad Surgery a little better.

I think adapting a well-known classical piece makes this record sometimes feel more like a novelty record than it should. Case in point, the encore, "Nutrocker," an adaptation of "The Nutcracker" that feels tacked on. Sometimes I find humor that I'm not sure was intended. Or maybe it was. This is a highly creative, atmospheric, and brilliantly played adaptation. That they were able to pull it off live makes it even more incredible.

Actually, "incredible" is a pretty good word for it. The word means more than most think it does, and is kind of a double-edged sword. This album treads on both sides of that sword.

Overall, though, I like listening to this one now and then. Can't say I love it, though. I do love parts, but overall, it can sometimes be just a little too much of everything that it is.

Brad's Take:

This was not at all what I expected.

For whatever reason, I always assumed Emerson, Lake, and Palmer were just another 70s folk-rock band, judging by their album covers and by their band name. I thought they were basically a Crosby, Stills, and Nash-type band. I obviously never listened to them, until now.

As soon as I hit play, I threw all my prior assumptions out the window and just sat back to finally listen to them and give them their fair chance to prove to me what they actually are. I don't really know how to classify this band now. Classical rock from Mars?

When the songs on this album aren't super weird, they're super great. The whole thing is just completely strange and experimental, while still being very musical and accessible. It's weird as hell, and a bit too sci-fi for my taste, but somehow they make it work. It doesn't sound like they're just aliens banging around on synthesizers and organs. They're actually playing songs. That's the most impressive part about this album to me. It seems that experimental music from the 60s and 70s was more or less just noise to be noise. This isn't like that.

The only bad thing I have to say about this album is that the synthesizer sound they used on "The Old Castle" sounds way too similar to when you're getting your teeth cleaned at the dentist. My stress levels went very high during that song, as you can imagine.

All in all, Pictures at an Exhibition is so hard to explain. You just have to listen to it. And if you go in with an open mind, you'll probably come out of it like I did: totally confused by how much you actually enjoyed it.

This was not at all what I expected.

PS: I had no idea that this was actually an old classical piece until after I wrote my review so that kind of changes my perception of it a little bit. I mean, it's not all their own original music, but that's fine. It was still really enjoyable, even when it wasn't. It doesn't make sense to me either.

"Hunky Dory" by David Bowie (December, 1971)

Dad's Take:

As 1971 approaches its end, we are treated to our first look at one of the inescapable presences of pop music for the next 20 years or more, David Bowie. Like him or not, there's no denying his influence on much of what came later, and that he managed to never be boring.

The first time I remember seeing Bowie on TV, he and his band were all wearing dresses. I'd never seen anything like it. But there was definitely something captivating about the music. Those last two sentences probably sum up David Bowie as well as anything else.

So, let's take a listen to the record.

If you look at album openers, it's hard to find one better than "Changes" for the messages it introduces that can be found throughout the record. The rest of the album was less known to radio listeners. In fact, the album was only a modest success, although in the years to come it would be revisited and reappraised as a groundbreaking album by a major artist who had scratched public consciousness but had not yet really broken through. It's a good album, full of well-written and well-performed songs that were not like anything else, and yet drew on everything that had come before. There's singer-songwriter influence, rock influence, blues, Velvet Underground, Broadway, the brilliantly weird songwriting of the Kinks' Ray Davies, T. Rex glam, Queen's torch songs...pretty much everything. But while it's all of those things, it's also none of those things. The combination is odd and fresh. I can easily imagine people hearing this the first time and not really being sure what to do with it, but finding it somehow captivating. Like that time I saw him on TV.

Highlights for me include the iconoclastic-but-commercial "Changes," "Life On Mars" (a hit single in the UK), "Kooks," the deceptively goofy "Fill Your Heart," the uncanny "Song for Bob Dylan" (with a vocal that is so Bowie, and yet so Dylanesque), and "Queen Bitch," which could well be the best Velvet Underground song that they never did. The album closes with the impenetrable-and-nonsensical-yet-interesting "The Bewlay Brothers," a great closer even if it doesn't make any sense at all.

All in all, this is one of those looks at somebody who would become much bigger than you'd expect from the record's initial response or the response to the songs that had broken out in the previous years, but when you look back, you see it. You see the great future the artist was destined to have, and the influence he'd have, and the inevitable mixed reactions that anybody has who breaks the rules and does something that goes beyond the norm. While his previous albums had been portents of what was to come, it's on this one that he really finds his voice and his persona.

This may be our first look at Bowie on our list of classic albums, but it won't be our last. I look forward to more.

Brad's Take:

Like my dad said, "Changes" is a great album opener. If you're like me (someone who isn't very familiar with David Bowie's music) I'm sure you will recognize "Changes" immediately. Such a good song! I think it's the only one that I was already familiar with.

A lot of the songs on here reminded me of that typical late 60's pop stuff, which was cool. "Kooks" was a fun little song. It reminded me of the silly side of The Beatles, like "Yellow Submarine" or "Octopus's Garden."

I don't really have much to say about this album. This being my first real taste of David Bowie, I liked it! I can definitely see myself coming back to this album again. We have more Bowie coming up so I'm interested to see how he naturally progresses from here.

"There's a Riot Goin' On" by Sly & The Family Stone (November, 1971)

Dad's Take:

I'm surprised Sly and the Family Stone aren't on this list earlier. We passed by all their pioneering late-sixties albums and skipped ahead to this one, featuring a Sly who is already burned out and showing the effects of his excesses. Still, this is a very good album, just not one of my favorites by this iconic band.

Songs like the opener, "Luv 'n' Haight" and the huge hit, "Family Affair," ensure that this is going to be a great album, but it feels darker and heavy than the earlier records. Although it charted well upon its release, it's really only in retrospect that it has earned the classic status that puts it high on best albums lists. Rolling Stone places it at number 99 of its 500 Best Albums.

The band was falling apart while this record was being recorded. Sly's behavior had become erratic, and record company deadlines had stopped meaning much to him. People who had not seen this band since the great Stand! album and their incredible Woodstock performance were likely shocked by this record. Sly Stone (Sylvester Stewart) created music that reflected the troubled events in the increasingly violent, racially-divided world that emerged as the sixties ended.

The album may be dark, but it's still loaded with the funky grooves you expect from this band, and the social messages that were always present in their songs. Artistically, it's a solid album, a good reflection of where its primary creator's head was at the time. Unfortunately, Sly was well on his way to becoming the next rock and roll casualty, and that downslide is evident here. He was still among the most expressive composers in the industry, though, and his genius shines through the darkness. "Africa Talks To You (The Asphalt Jungle)" is a good example of the funk guitar and innovative slap bass that made the band famous, behind the growling vocals of a stoned Stone.

So, that I prefer the livelier psychedelic funk of their earlier records does not mean that this album does not deserve a place in our reviews. This is still influential music unlike anything that ever came before. And those beats are incredible. Even if Sly sounds completely wasted, he's still breaking ground and writing songs with a lot to say.

Brad's Take:

I haven't gone deep into Sly & the Family Stone's catalog or anything, but from what I do know about them, I know that There's A Riot Goin' On is a bit of a departure from what came out before it. Before, you had more radio-friendly funk jams, but with this album, everything is a lot darker and mellow.

After reading the Wikipedia page about the making of this album, it's very apparent that Sly was going through all sorts of personal changes and dark things that directly affected his music. Drugs, inner-band drama, and all kinds of other things. You can hear the darkness all over this album. It's almost unbelievable that this even got recorded and released at all. Sly was getting heavily into drugs and would rather do those than actually work on music a lot of the time. There's A Riot Goin' On is an obvious beginning to a new chapter of Sly & the Family Stone.

Personally, I didn't really like it. I felt the moodiness throughout the album though, and maybe that's why none of it really excited me or anything. Maybe that feeling was part of the experience. Maybe I did like it! Either way, I don't really see myself coming back to this.

"IV" by Led Zeppelin (November, 1971)

Brad's Take:

It's kind of crazy to think that even four albums in, Led Zeppelin still had it! The opening track "Black Dog" just proves that they were not even close to being done melting peoples faces off. "Black Dog", "Rock and Roll", "Stairway to Heaven", When the Levee Breaks"... This is just packed with gold. Even the lesser knows songs, like "Misty Mountain Hop" and "Four Sticks" are awesome.

This is just proof that The Beatles aren't the only band with absolutely irreplaceable band members. Robert Plant, John Bonham, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones together make the perfect hard-rock equation. 

Every good thing about this album (and the band, in general) has been said on all of the other reviews we've done for these guys. This is yet another perfect Zeppelin record!


Dad's Take:

This album, technically untitled but known for convenience as Led Zeppelin IV, is the one many people my age think of first when they think of Zeppelin. From the iconic cover to the well-known songs, this album is definitely a classic. From the initial "Hey mama, said the way you move" to the end of "When the Levee Breaks," much of my generation knows this one pretty much by heart. I mean, is there a bigger anthem of seventies rock than "Stairway to Heaven"? And what kind of immortal rock god does it take to write a song like "Going to California"?

The album still has some of the psychedelic touches of their earlier album, but mostly it's balls-to-the-wall rock, with touches of Tolkien fantasy and a whole lotta old blues (some of it stolen without credit...). Musically and lyrically, this is a pretty amazing album. Even if you're one of those people who never got into Led Zeppelin, I bet some of these songs will make you say, "OK, yeah, I do kind of like that one."

As Brad said, it's hard to think of new things to say that we didn't mention in earlier reviews. This is Zeppelin, and unless you've been hiding under a rock with your Air Supply records, you know exactly what that means.

If it's been a long time since you've rock and rolled, pull this album out of your collection (if you're over 50, you probably have it somewhere, and if you're younger, chances are you do too), put it on for a spin, and let your mind be blown.