While this post punk is relatively fun, I wouldn't say that it was worth digging through the archives for another listen. Stay in the today unless you need a soundtrack for a 1980 retro party. The rhythm tracks do deserve an honorable mention though.
The link should you want to DJ that party.
A night like this very often would kill me, but it was cool rockin' for an evening.
Interesting. The last album I listened to was ZZ Top's Tres Hombres. Both albums were produced at around the same time but ZZ Top with Texas roots, Alex Harvey in the UK. The sound and themes could almost be interchangeable. I could easily see most of Harvey's songs belonging to ZZ Top and vice versa. Excellent blues rock. It's when the Sensational Alex Harvey Band moves on to glam or "heavier" rock that they start to be less enjoyable.
They are just so good at what they do Billy Gibbons' guitar work is always "just right" while Dusty Hill and Frank Beard create a tight driving rhythm. And they're still doing it 40+ years later!
The songs are memorable and singable. If you'd like to sing along, here's the link on Spotify.
Album art fair use https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1136789
"Theatrical starkness." That's how the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die book describes Bauhaus. Maybe it's a little too theatrical. Maybe it's a little too dark. But this album doesn't do it for me.
Brilliant vocal performance deftly blending folk and blues. Martyn's voice ranges from a gravelly growl to a haunting lilting falsetto. This 42 year old recording could be released today and still become a hit.
If you don't know John Martyn's work, you should. Listen on Spotify.
I don't like it. It's overly melodramatic, unbelievable angst, and perhaps a rather poor David Bowie impersonation.
But go ahead and listen, your mileage may vary.
I missed their heyday. I was a tad young, but the rock group KISS was also highly taboo in the ultraconservative society of Southern Baptist Dallas in which I was raised. In fact, I remember being fascinated by the one church friend I had who was a KISS fan. How could he be? How could his parents let him? Didn't they know that KISS was an acronym for Kids In Satan's Service? Didn't they know that listening to music sung by devil worshippers would give the evil one just the inroad he needed to shake the faith of the faithful? This was the same reasons we avoided the Eagles "Hotel California." You know, the one with an album cover that was (rumored to be) a picture of a Satanic church in California. We trusted our leaders, "Christian" authors, and others to have discovered the Satanic messages in albums played backwards. It was too dangerous for us to check them out for ourselves. We were all just one listening session of an Iron Maiden album away from starting down the path to damnation.
It's taken decades of time and thousands of miles to get over this album burning mentality (not to mention significant $$ spent on therapy). Fortunately Spotify now allows me to go back and economically taste some of this forbidden musical fruit.
The judgement: KISS's "Destroyer" despite the hint-of-violence in the title, is not dangerous and in fact, most of what I have now heard from KISS is anything but edgy. Their greatest sin seems to rather unChristianlike hubris and some PG-rated sexual bravado. Their makeup and music isn't black magic, it's marketing. The music? Not bad. But they are to rock what the circus is to theater.
