Posts From Mark Leviton
Todd Rundgren ‘A Wizard, A True Star’: Brilliant & Baffling
Was Todd’s against-the-grain psychedelic album a masterpiece or a slab of unintelligible self-indulgence? We look back at a ’70s classic
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Van Morrison and ‘Moondance’: A Brand New Day
Always singing as if his life depends on a good take, the 1970 album is a lesson in musical brilliance, flexibility and hard work.
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Genesis’ ‘A Trick of the Tail’: A New Beginning
The album proved that Genesis was set to achieve commercial and artistic successes beyond what they’d accomplished during the Peter Gabriel years
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John Prine ‘The Missing Years’: With the Heartbreakers
The album, with its great lineup won him the first of his four Grammys.
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Yes’ ‘The Yes Album’: Brilliance Under Pressure
Their record label was looking for commercial progress in order to justify keeping them under contract. This 1971 classic put the band on the prog map
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Boz Scaggs’ ‘Silk Degrees’: Game-Changer
Looking back at the recording of the album, Scaggs said that while listening to the playbacks in 1975 he had the sense that something special had happened.
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Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ ‘Get Happy!!’: Stack of Tracks
The album is packed with “20 original hits by the original artist,” some of the most intense, gut-wrenching, clever and joyfully sad songs he ever wrote
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The Kinks’ ‘Sleepwalker’: The Comeback
The album kept selling to teenagers who barely remembered the Kinks of the previous decade, or thought they were a new band
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Joe Walsh ‘The Smoker You Drink…’ Album: Barnstorming
Cut with his new group Barnstorm, his debut solo album became his commercial breakthrough.
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Little Feat ‘Waiting for Columbus’: The End of the Beginning
How they pulled off one of the best live albums of all time is a heartening story of persistence and a sad, cautionary tale.
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