Marianne Faithfull didn’t have to open her mouth to receive a recording contract. As the story goes, so vividly recounted in the liner notes to the new box set Cast Your Fate to the Wind: The U.K. Decca Recordings, the young woman was so striking in beauty and presence that impresario Andrew Loog Oldham didn’t hesitate to sign her on sight. (Even her name was made for stardom!) But it was just as clear that she was no ordinary pop starlet chasing dreams in Swingin’ London. Faithfull was remarkably clear-eyed, quipping to NME, “In the pop business, talent doesn’t count.” Thankfully, she had it…in abundance.
Cast Your Fate to the Wind: The Complete U.K. Decca Recordings 1964-1969 brings together all four of the late artist’s original U.K. releases…
Category: rock
The songs on Stars form a literal journey from morning into night into morning again, and a metaphoric journey from pain and nostalgia to acceptance. Songs, even when they dwell on darker emotions, contain a sprinkling of hope. This is reflected in the music, which has an early Elton John feel and often has an anthemic, defiant sound.
The album begins with ‘Rising with the Sun’ – a song that starts in the morning but has a weariness that suggests it is sung by someone who has been up all night. It is a song about endurance, renewal and the quiet determination to keep moving. “I’ve been walking, I’ve been waiting far too long/For the tide to start to turn, for the spring to come along”, sings Jones, clearly longing for change and rebirth. And musically, the song…
Jimmy Barnes’ seminal album For the Working Class Man reissued to celebrate its 40th Anniversary on limited edition Tour Souvenir Edition with bonus disc of live classics. Completely remastered under the supervision of mastering engineer Bob Ludwig and sounding better than ever!
Bonus disc features the ultimate live versions of FTWCM tracks from across the 40 years, plus a new ballad version of ‘Working Class Man’.
First released in 1985, For The Working Class Man is full of undeniable classics, including Jimmy’s first Top 10 solo single ‘I’d Die To Be With You Tonight’, the Top 40 smash ‘Ride The Night Away’, and the beautiful ballad that he wrote for his wife Jane, ‘Without Your Love’. The album’s title track ‘Working Class Man’ has taken on a life of its…
The Gold Rush: The Songs of Neil Young features 15 of Young‘s classics and deep cuts reinterpreted exclusively for Uncut in tribute to Shakey’s 80th birthday.
There’s some ragged, glorious rock from Kurt Vile & The Sadies, J Mascis, Alan Sparhawk‘s Tired Eyes and MJ Lenderman & The Wind; there are tender ballads from Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Joan Shelley & Nathan Salzburg, Drive By Truckers‘ Mike Cooley, and Sharon Van Otten & The Attachment Theory; and there are wilder, more experimental versions from Orcutt Shelley Miller and Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection.
Plus it all kicks off with a stunning 8-and-a-half-minute “Ambulance Blues” from Phosphorescent.
The perfectionism involved in crafting Fleetwood Mac’s Tango in the Night reached a level of intensity experienced by few artists before or since. Commercially and creatively, the painstaking efforts paid off. Recorded over the span of 18 months, the triple-platinum album spawned four hit singles and put Fleetwood Mac back at the center of mainstream conversation. Its demands also ultimately forced its primary architect, guitarist-singer Lindsey Buckingham, to leave the group shortly after its completion. Was it all worth it? A thousand times “yes.”
Sourced from the original master tapes Mobile Fidelity’s hybrid SACD of Tango in the Night presents the 1987 record in audiophile sound for the first time. Everything co-producers…
…Sourced from the original master tapes.
Benefitting from an enhanced coherence and clarity that befit the album’s nearly 72-minute length, this disc plays with richer detail, sharper focus, and broader dynamics than prior versions.
While it’s not a repudiation of her blockbuster, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie is a clear step forward, teeming with ambition and filled with new musical ideas and different sonic textures. Alanis Morissette‘s voice still sears, but she has more control over her singing, rarely reaching the piercing heights that occasionally made Jagged Little Pill jarring. Also, she has clearly spent some time crafting her lyrics; not only do they never sound like straight diary entries, she no longer is trying to fit too many syllables into a phrase.
When Alanis Morissette took direct aim at an ex who wronged her on the eviscerating “You Oughta Know” in 1995, everything about the Top 10 song communicated it wasn’t the usual narrative about love gone south. Or the typical wounded singer wallowing in self pity.
Morissette, and both the lead single from and her entire American major-label debut – the profoundly personal Jagged Little Pill – represented a sea change. They kickstarted a movement, one whose impact continues to echo throughout the mainstream three decades later.
Ranked the 69th Greatest Album of All Time by Rolling Stone, included on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of 200 Definitive Albums, and featured in several books about essential…
Dream Theater celebrate their 40th anniversary with a special live release Quarantième filmed during their 2024 European tour, their first to feature Mike Portnoy back in the band after over 13 years.
Recorded in Paris at the Adidas Arena, the tour saw the band debuting a track from their latest studio album ‘Parasomnia’, as well as classic tracks from throughout their career, including ‘Metropolis Pt. 1’, ‘Hollow Years’, ‘Octavarium’, ‘Pull Me Under’…
“From the moment we announced our 40th anniversary tour, we knew it would be a very special event for both the band and our fans and must be captured. With this release, our performance in Paris is presented so beautifully in both stunning audio and video and really encapsulates this momentous occasion for all to enjoy”…
…a remixed and remastered version, with new parts recorded, including by Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett and strings recorded at the iconic Abbey Road Studios in London.
Tackling a legendary progressive rock concept album is a dangerous proposition, especially when a recent remaster has refocused the spotlight on the original. But drummer/vocalist Nick D’Virgilio is better suited than most to reinterpret Genesis’ classis The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1975). A member of contemporary progsters Spock’s Beard, perhaps more importantly D’Virgilio played drums on four tracks of Genesis’ overlooked post-Phil Collins album, Calling All Stations (1997). With such a connection, and in collaboration with Nashville producer Mark Hornsby — who…
Essentially the forerunners to Badfinger, the Iveys landed on the Beatles’ Apple label in mid-1968 after the latter group’s personal assistant, Mal Evans, encouraged them to submit tapes to Paul McCartney. Their bright, melodic, and harmony-filled pop/rock sound immediately drew comparisons to the Beatles and to the work of McCartney in particular.
The group’s roots go back to Swansea, Wales, where they’d first gotten together in 1963 under the name the Wild Ones, with Pete Ham on vocals and lead guitar, David “Dai” Jenkins on rhythm guitar and vocals, Ron Griffiths on bass and vocals, and Terry Gleeson on drums. They became the Iveys – picked for a street in Swansea, as well as an expression of admiration for the Hollies…
An expanded deluxe edition of A Tab in the Ocean by Nektar. First issued in November 1972, the album was the second release by Nektar and was a milestone for the band as it set the template that that would bring them success in both Germany and the USA.
Originally featuring just four pieces, the albums first side would be dominated by the extensive title track which was a progressive rock tour de force. The remaining tracks, ‘Desolation Valley / Waves’, ‘Crying in the Dark’ and ‘King of Twilight’ would also become Nektar classics.
The album was recorded and mixed at Dierks Studios, Stommeln, Germany in October 1972, produced by Peter Hauke and Nektar and engineered by Dieter Dierks.
While most bands undergo a number of changes over the course of their careers, few of them experienced a more radical stylistic evolution than Fleetwood Mac. Initially conceived as a hard-edged British blues combo in the late ’60s, the band gradually evolved into an incredibly popular and influential pop/rock act over the course of a decade. Originally, guitarists Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer provided the group with their gutsy psychedelic blues-rock sound, then the band moved toward pop/rock with the addition of keyboardist/songwriter Christine McVie….
Fleetwood Mac Live 1975 captures the incredible electricity of the band’s first tour with the legendary lineup of Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham joining Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, & Christine McVie.
A remastered and expanded 4-CD box set of ‘Sea Dream’, with unreleased demos, live material, and new archival content.
…Sea Dream was a collection of previously unreleased demos and recordings made by the late Randy California and his band Spirit. Originally issued in 2002 as a double CD version and unavailable for many years.
The ‘Sea Dream’ suite was a project Randy had been working on since the late 1980s and this work was the basis of the original release which was greeted with praise from Spirit fans. For this new edition, Spirit archivist Mick Skidmore has located new master sources of the original material and has also enhanced this release by the discovery of an additional 2CDs of wonderful,..
…featuring the original album, B-sides, remixes, singles and never-before-released live at NEC, Birmingham, which has been newly mixed by Dan Hawkins.
From the moment the pan flute fanfare on “One Way Ticket” kicks off One Way Ticket to Hell…and Back, it’s clear that the Darkness still believes that more is more. If anything, the band believes that even more is even better: with the help of producer Roy Thomas Baker, they make their second album incredibly glossy and expensive-sounding, with layers of sitars, marching drums, bagpipes, and tubular bells on top of their already-powerful guitars, drums, and keyboards (and, of course, Justin Hawkins’ formidable falsetto). But while the band’s excess succeeded on…
…featuring six bonus tracks (and one song replaced).
Neil Young’s sixth studio album, 1975’s Tonight’s the Night, closed out the singer-songwriter’s so-called Ditch Trilogy. 1972’s country-rock landmark Harvest catapulted Young to superstardom, yielding the chart-topping single “Heart of Gold” and becoming the U.S.’ best-selling album of 1972. But he wasn’t comfortable with everything that fame brought, and his successive albums replaced the wistful glow and commercial sheen of Harvest with something altogether darker. Tonight’s the Night followed Time Fades Away (1973) and On the Beach (1974) in the trilogy, though Beach was actually recorded after Tonight’s.
The raw, unvarnished music of Tonight’s…
Fire Records release Long March Through the Jazz Age, the last recorded work by Chris Bailey and The Saints, coinciding closely with what would have been Bailey’s 69th birthday. It’s a moving farewell – a testament to a restless, uncompromising artist who always moved forward, one of rock’s great lyricists and iconoclasts.
Recorded in late 2018 at Church Street Studios in Sydney, Bailey and longtime Saints drummer Pete Wilkinson flew in from Europe to reunite with guitarist/engineer Sean Carey, who had previously toured and recorded with the band. They were joined by Davey Lane (You Am I) on guitar, plus a handpicked ensemble of Sydney’s most exciting young horn, string and keyboard players.
“In my opinion, The Saints were Australia’s…