Posts From Sam Sutherland
Warren Zevon’s Recovery Through ‘Sentimental Hygiene’
The 1987 album signaled more than a bid for a career reset. Now sober and focused, and with help from R.E.M., he was clearly back on track.
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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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‘Graceland’—Paul Simon’s World Music Reset
The album that would become Simon’s grandest statement came into view when he was gifted with a tape of South African music.
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Traffic’s ‘John Barleycorn Must Die’: Forward into the Past
Begun as a Steve Winwood solo project, the album morphed into a Traffic reunion with the addition of Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood to the fold.
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Dave Edmunds’ ‘Repeat When Necessary’: Where the New Wave Met the Old
The Welsh rocker’s fifth solo album, made with the great Rockpile, captures him at the pinnacle of his influence as an architect of late ’70s new wave.
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Steely Dan’s Sophisticated ‘Countdown to Ecstasy’ @50
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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The Souther Hillman Furay Band’s Debut LP: Less Than the Sum of its Parts
The Souther Hillman Furay Band accomplished its commercial mission and displayed the stylistic DNA of the Byrds, Poco and, yes, the Eagles.
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The Band’s Pioneering ‘Music From Big Pink’
The album offered quiet songs of experience bathed in a rustic glow, with no hints of the futurism and none of the kilowatt drama then prevalent elsewhere in rock.
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Dire Straits’ ‘Brothers in Arms’: Mark Knopfler Completes the Transition to Stadium-Friendly Band
One of the first all-digital albums recorded with the compact disc in mind, it vaulted the British band into the rock stratosphere.
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The Byrds’ ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ LP—A Folk Rock Manifesto
With worthwhile covers, solid originals and no filler, the LP sustained a level of quality that invited favorable comparison with their heroes, the Beatles.
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