Posts From Sam Sutherland
Elvis Costello: ‘Armed Forces’ @40
The band’s third album was a leap forward in songcraft and sonic ambition, a song cycle weaving the personal and political.
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Dr. John’s ‘Gumbo’: A New Orleans Master’s Thesis
For the sessions, instead of his own new material, he breathed authentic life into lively new versions of hometown classics.
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‘Astral Weeks’: Van Morrison’s Masterpiece @ 50
A “feverish poetic intensity persists” throughout the cycle of songs that comprise Morrison’s 1968 work, even as those songs shift in pace and tone.
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‘Who’s Next’: Plan B Yields a Career Blockbuster
Born from the ashes of an abandoned project Pete Townshend called ‘Lifehouse,’ the band’s 1971 masterwork triumphed through songcraft and performance.
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Dire Straits’ Breakthrough Debut Album @40
“Sultans of Swing” was immediately distinctive in both sound and story. The album proved the band to be one of the most refreshingly creative of its day.
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The Byrds’ ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’ @50
Their most consequential stylistic stroke since their pioneering folk-rock debut three years earlier, it ushered in country-rock and Americana.
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‘Let It Bleed’: The Rolling Stones’ Turbulent Masterpiece
The album captures the band at its creative apogee through a dark masterpiece that mirrors the violent ’60s milieu in which it was created.
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The Flying Burrito Bros.’ Seminal Country-Rock Debut
Gram Parsons had envisioned the Burritos as “his” band, but ‘The Gilded Palace of Sin’ underscores the partnership between Parsons and Chris Hillman.
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Steely Dan’s Sophisticated ‘Countdown to Ecstasy’
If the songcraft displayed on the first album reflected their Brill Building apprenticeship, the new material proved more open-ended—and more sophisticated.
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‘Dixie Chicken’: Little Feat’s Secret Southern Sauce
The group drew on Lowell George’s versatile command of blues, country, folk and R&B for its third–and many feel finest–studio album.
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