Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell

YOURZ

My first experience with this album was as a barely 18 year old Airforce recruit.  At basic training, to reinforce our lowly status, the airmen recruits had their own 'club' (meaning a room with tables and chairs and a hole-in-the-wall bar).  But the club had a juke box with a selection of present-day hits.  This selection included just about every track on Bat Out Of Hell, the Jim Steinman penned rock opus.

We would spend many a night in various stages of drunken rowdiness singing along to these tracks, generally loudly and particularly out of tune.  Alcohol has a way, though, of tuning even the most tuneless until we all sounded like Pavarotti or maybe even Meat Loaf himself.

It had been some considerable time since I last heard Bat Out Of Hell, but I wasn't surprised I knew most of the words still.  Like The Beatles, these songs have become part of my music memory, there to be instantly recalled with the opening strains of, lets say, Paradise By The Dashboard Light.  Ask me to recall them without a musical prompt and I'd fail miserably.  Put the track on, though, and I'm right there with Meat, belting it out like I've been singing it for years.

33 years on (yes, it has been that long), this album is still selling more in any given year than most indie bands can manage in their careers.  The only question I have is when is the stage show going to happen?

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

MINE

When I was a teenager, I'd often sit up late on a Friday and Saturday night with my father, talking about everything in the world, with the radio on in the background.  For most of my teenage years we didn't have a television, because my mother objected to the fact it would suck our brains out of our eyes (read: no-one helped her with the housework) and so she got rid of it (read: hid it in the garage under a bunch of boxes.)

The local public broadcast radio station ended at midnight, and switched over to what was then Australia's only youth radio station: Sydney's Double J, later to become the national broadcaster Triple J.  In this way I got to hear some truly weird and wonderful music, given that I lived in the country backwater that was (and occasionally still is) our national capital.  I can still recall when I heard for the first time the introduction to You Took the Words Right Out Of My Mouth, and it gave me a shiver.  I was 14, and totally prepared to offer my throat to the wolf with the red roses, but unsure of what that would really entail.  I remember that moment like it was yesterday: the smell of my dad's pipe and the woodsmoke from our open fire.  I remember it had come in the middle of a short break in the conversation, and we both just listened to it until the music started, and then looked at each other and asked: What was THAT all about?

Later this album would be everywhere, and was certainly played over and over again on the cassette player in my first boyfriend's house (hi, Andrew!) along with Kate Bush and the Sweet (ah, those were the days!)  Therefore it's as much a part of my DNA as Hotel California, and will never not be a part of my life.  Especially as it'll always bring that moment back to me, a moment I treasure.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

For more information: http://www.meatloaf.net/

Peter Gabriel - Hit

YOURZ

Peter Gabriel was always my favourite ex-Genesis member, although, I'm a little ashamed to say Phil Collins ran a close race for a while back there.(Mine says: 'Ello... I'm Phil Collins! Hmm doesn't work without the cockney accent)  Poor old Mike Rutherford was never even in the running.  Thankfully, Pete won out by the sheer brilliance of his songwriting (and what the fuck was a ...Su-Su-Sussudio anyway?)

Thinking about it, Solsbury Hill would have to be another I'd want played at my wake (are you taking notes, Mine?)  It is such a beautiful, positive, uplifting piece of music and the lyrics match it perfectly... "Hey, I said "You can keep my things, they've come to take me home."  How beautiful is this?

Then there is Don't Give Up and the accompanying video clip, where he spends all of it in the arms of Kate Bush.  Oh, how I envied him.  And the song itself had every chance of being a saccharine piece of schmaltz but it just isn't.   Then there's Games Without Frontiers, a brilliant piece of commentary on nationalism built around minimalist keyboards and programed drums.  And yes, Kate Bush sings backing on this one too.

Hit covers a fair cross section of material from Gabriel's solo career but for me, it's the tracks from the earlier part of his career that stick out for me.  The production is stripped back and sparce with his distinctive voice cutting over the top, majestic and shining.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

MINE

Hmmm, another "best of" album.  Not saying anything. (YourZ sez: yes you are - how many times do you wanna hear me say I was wrong?)

I was introduced to Peter Gabriel by my first husband many, many years ago.  I listened to the first solo album (after Genesis) many times, and hearing Solsbury Hill open this CD just brought that all back to me.  It was probably three or four years old at the time and I'd never heard anything like it.  I remember gazing for hours at the beads of water on the car's bonnet that forms part of the cover art.

And the man's output, when condensed into this selection of songs, is truly staggering.  Who among you doesn't smile at the thought of the chickens dancing in the video for Sledgehammer?  I'm sure I'm not the only one who sheds a tear or two during the beautiful duet with Kate Bush -  Don't Give Up. In fact, I was surprised by how many of these songs took me back to a place, a time, I hadn't thought about for years.

There's his work for political and humanitarian causes - for Amnesty and other human rights organisations.  there's his championing of world music and dance in WOMAD.  There are many reasons to love Peter Gabriel and you can hear examples of them on this CD.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

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

Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen

MINE

Oh, why don't I play this more often?  A Forgotten Gem for me, that's for sure.  I've been a fan of shiny piano-based pop since my youth - aided by my forced piano education and my desire to play something, ANYthing other than the dull and boring classical pieces I was forced to practice day in and day out.  So my teenage years were informed by my love of 10CC, Billy Joel and Elton John.  Mock me not.  (YourZ sez: oh, come on, don't spoil my fun)

Ben Folds Five certainly deliver when it comes to that shiny-pop sound, even though many of the tunes on this album reflect a darker lyricism, including Song For The Dumped.  It's the album that brought the band their greatest recognition before they split, and is loaded with great tunes that'll put a positive feeling in your heart while delivering snide and depressing messages.

I have a soft spot for Mr Folds, for taking a young Adelaide girl as his bride, albeit briefly, and making his home Down Under for a while.  He's also fond of the Antipodes and tours here regularly, so maybe I'll take the opportunity to see him play next time he visits.  It's sure to be a fun gig.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

YOURZ

Hmm, reading Mine's review above and listening back to Whatever And Ever Amen, I also asked myself why I haven't listened to this more often.  Then it occurred me why.  As a guitarist, spending too much time listening to a pop music album that doesn't have guitars is kind of like an Israeli spending time in Palestine - it just feels wrong (I know - I need to get over myself sometimes, don't I?) (Mine says: ... reading my mind again dammit)

This is not to say this isn't a great album 'cause it is.  Ben Folds and co are fabulously talented and the songs are clever on a number of levels.  I really do like it and understand why Mine has called it a Forgotten Gem.  The opener, One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces, sounds like everything Jay Kay (from Jamiroquai for those not in the know) has ever done except better and funnier.

Then there's the beautiful, sad and poignant Brick, which became a cross over hit for the band and propelled them into the mainstream, where I get the feeling a lot of people probably felt overwhelmed by the cleverness of Fold's lyrics and relegated the band to almost gimmick status, more's the pity.

But I think it's the song Kate, a piece of pure pop genius with soaring harmonies, I enjoy most.  I used to share a house with a girl of the same name and more than a few boys fell head over heels for her while she lived there.  The lyrics are almost a perfect homage to the girl I knew, although I was as never struck by her as my friends were (they never lived with her - let's leave it at that).

I'm glad the pointy stick landed on Whatever And Ever Amen because this is indeed one album (in fact the only Ben Folds in our collection) I am glad to be reminded we have.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

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

Kate Bush - The Whole Story

MINE

This greatest hits CD misses some of the songs I would have included - but it's damn fine anyway. The Kick Inside and Lionheart were soundtracks to much of my teenage years, and Bush was - and still is - a huge role model for so many women. Not just a singer, a dancer, a songwriter, a musician, amazingly attractive, not a bimbo.... the list goes on. And Wuthering Heights meant so much to me - singing as she did about one of my teenage heroines - Catherine Earnshaw. It finally made sense to be a literature nerd who was into modern dance!

I'd have been happier if the compilation had included Hammer Horror from Lionheart and her duet with Peter Gabriel - Don't Give Up. But listening to it has reminded me how classic, and at the same time contemporary her music remains. Samples and covers of her work over the years by artists as varied as Utah Saints and Natalie Cole show how relevant she remains to this day.

And personally - the outfit she wore for the video of Hammer Horror totally informed my dress choice for the end-of-year school dance that year.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP


YOURZ

Kate Bush only came to existence in my world from a single, memorable point - the first time I saw the film clip for Babooshka. Oh sure, I remember her first single, the annoyingly catchy Wuthering Heights, but only because it came out around the same time I had to read the book at school. If anything, she saved me from having to read the bloody thing.

At the time, I was more interested in bands like Kiss and Sabbath to pay much more than cursory notice to the woman singing, apart from remembering her prancing around in the moors somewhere. All this changed with Babooshka.

Suddenly, those raging hormones in my 17 year old body stiffened and made it hard for me to even breathe. My hand and I became more than just friends while I took off Kate’s armour again and again and again (well, I was young then).

A number of years later, in my guise as sensitive young man, I cultivated an appreciation of Ms. Bush’s tunes, if only to pursue and conquer a number of more accessible objects of lust. But Ms Bush became one of those creepy commonalities between all the girls I liked and loved, including Mine.

I don’t hate her. How could I hate any one who informed my lust so well. But this is the sort of music that highlights the differences in taste between me and Mine. Viva la difference, I say.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN

Click here for more info: http://www.katebush.com/