Posts From Sam Sutherland
When Classic Rockers Rocked the Classics
Classical themes have found their way into rock since the earliest days of the music. We look at some of the best, from ELO to ELP and beyond.
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The Byrds’ ‘Younger Than Yesterday’—An Ambitious Studio Flight
Expanding beyond their trademark jingle-jangle folk-rock, the band created their most diverse, experimental recording to date.
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Elvis Costello & The Attractions ‘Trust’: A Dark Masterwork
The album, Costello’s fifth overall, captures the quartet at a potent but troubled peak, its title a loaded, ironic signifier.
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Elvis Costello ‘Armed Forces’: What’s So Funny?
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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Bob Marley and the Wailers’ ‘Live!’ Album: Reggae Rocks Babylon
The 1975 London concert provided validation that they had breached the rock market with their potent strain of reggae.
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‘Buffalo Springfield Again’: An Embattled Creation
A volatile mix of talent and dysfunction percolates beneath the surface of the California band’s second and best album, cobbled together amidst rivalries
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Jackson Browne ‘The Pretender’: Dreams and Nightmares
The 1976 album, arriving at a difficult time in his life, projects a more sinister and less forgiving world than Browne’s earlier works.
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Graham Parker & the Rumour’s ‘Heat Treatment’: When Pub-Rock Met New Wave
When the Village Voice unveiled its 1976 Pazz & Jop Poll winners, an unknown English musician commanded two of the top five entries from the influential poll’s panel of music critics
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Dire Straits’ ‘Making Movies’: Mark Knopfler’s Widescreen Ambitions
The album restored the band’s platinum stature with a more expansive style verging on prog rock while retaining retro accents.
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Paul Simon ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’: A Solo Triumph
His only #1 LP, and an Album of the Year Grammy winner, this 1975 release offered definitive proof that he was not going back to the past.
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