Cat Stevens - Tea For The Tillerman

MINE

I fell through a hole and ended up in 1980.  Sitting in my friend Karen's back room with the gang (Hi, you guys! Still reading?) where we were allowed to smoke and drink endless cups of coffee.  And where this was one of the albums that had top billing on the turntable, along with Hotel California and an awful lot of reggae thanks to Karen's brother Murray.

I hadn't listened to this CD since we bought it on one of those "it's reduced so why don't we get some music" ventures to our favourite store.  Shareholders, if you're looking for the reason J B Hi-Fi keeps tripling its profits year on year, look no further.  But as soon as I put it on, I sang along all the way through.  I know every single one of these songs, back to front and inside out.  Maybe if you cut one of my ears off and held it up to your ear, you'd hear Wild World or Into White.  Maybe that's just gross.  Why do I think of these things?  (YourZ sez: I to could ask why but at least you keep things interesting).

I'm not going to go into the semantics of how a British-born singer with Greek and Swedish ancestry happened to convert to Islam.  But I will say I don't have the urge to buy anything he's produced since then.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

YOURZ

I'm not a Cat Stevens fan.  There is something about his voice that has always annoyed me but I don't know what it is.  I feel the same way about Bob Dylan, even though both artists sound very different to each other.  But I can acknowledge Stevens is a great song writer.  However, like Dylan, I prefer the versions of songs when they're covered by others.

Maybe it is because a number of these songs were force-fed to me when I was a teenager while studying music when I much prefered KISS and Deep Purple to this.  What ever it is, it still makes me cringe a little.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN

For more information: http://catstevens.com/

The Eagles - Hotel California

MINE

It's not even a guilty pleasure.  When I pushed this CD into the car player this morning and heard the opening notes of Hotel California, the only feeling that came over me was delight.  I'm sorry if that marks me as an MOR fuddy-duddy, but this album was such a large part of my teenage years I just adore it.

I think about sitting in the back room at Karen's house where we were all allowed to smoke, arguing noisily about whatever was important to us that day.  It takes me back to Durras, where we made up that really rude version of the title track.  It takes me back to school and home and hanging out with that group of friends who I'm looking forward to seeing in November at our 30-year high school reunion (and doesn't that make me feel old?)

But hopefully it'll also take me forward.  I want this album to be part of all the ages of my life.  And I love how The Last Resort  is still more than seven minutes long but it still holds my attention right to the end.  I've never liked Pretty Maids.but I listened to  Life In the Fast Lane twice. Up really, really loud.  And I might just play it again on the way home.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

YOURZ

I wish I had some kind of wonderful story to tell about The Eagles.  But I don't.  I used to play Peaceful Easy Feeling and Lying Eyes years ago, neither of which are on this album.  As a teenager, I remember hearing them a lot, but would never have admitted liking them.  If anything, it was the opposite.  My friends and I used to put shit on them.  The Eagles represented establishment Top 40 corporate rock, the very thing that would soon bring about one of most profound schisms in contemporary music, better known to you and me as Punk.

So, if anything, I really have to be grateful to The Eagles for helping bring this about because, seriously, it makes me sick to think where modern music might have ended up if Punk hadn't shaken the foundations.  And honesty, apart from the Hotel California (the song), Life In The Fast Lane and Victim Of Love, this album makes me barf a little.

Joe Walsh, however, was nothing but a punk dressed up as a Mid-Western rocker.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN but only out of respect, okay...

For more information: http://www.eaglesband.com/