Black Sabbath - Paranoid

YOURZ

Heh, this was the shit when I was a lad.  So bad, in fact, I dared not speak the band's name around my conservative Catholic mother.  Status Quo was fine, AC/DC were okay and even KISS got past her.  But I had to rely on friends copies this classic in order to hear it.  

I remember sitting on the front steps of my mate Mick's place after a long summer afternoon, sharing a sneaky cigarette and listening to music on his Dad's quadraphonic system.  This was one of the LPs we'd listen to then and listening now takes me right back there.  

I love that this record still makes me headbang even though I hardly have the long locks of youth to flay around like I used to do.  It is, without a doubt, my favourite type of metal.  And while there have been so many great bands after them and despite Ozzy parading his tragic family in front of television cameras for the world to see, there will only ever be one Black Sabbath. 

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

MINE

So, when I was about 15 or so, there was a group of girls I went to school with and we used to get together every couple of weeks to smoke weed.  We'd meet up at Bernie's place, more often than not, because she used to hold for us (plus we were buying the stuff off her brother) and we'd smoke and eat (her mother was the most amazing baker of pies) and play records.  Mostly her brother's records.  So there was Dark Side of the Moon and Kiss and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

Then many years later there was a TV show called The Osbournes which both delighted and horrified me.  And now there's re-listening to Paranoid, which made me realise, he had an amazing voice, didn't he?  But apart from War Pigs (nearly eight minutes, that takes balls for an opening number) and Paranoid, I don't really know this album at all.  And it's not really my kind of thing.  But we need this in out collection.  Gives us gravitas, I think.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN

For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sabbath but there's a bunch of fan sites, too

Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons - The Very Best of

YOURZ

Jo Jo Zep, along with a few other Aussie bands, were a big favourite when I was in my last couple of years of high school.  Not favoured enough to buy anything of theirs, mind you (couldn't have my Kiss, Cheap Trick, AC/DC and Cold Chisel friends knowing I also liked them - damn peer group pressure!)  But they were regularly featured on Countdown and other Aussie rock shows at the time and also big hits at local Blue Light Discos.

The thing I liked about them was not only were they writing great, catchy, ska-tinged songs (at least for the first few big singles) but they were quality musicians and part of a larger group of Australian musicians and songwriters who were setting new standards (this does include Chisel, who had the incredilbe songwriting talents of Don Walker).

Tracks like Hit & Run, Shape I'm In and Puppet On A String were not only infectious, but great to dance to as well, back when I did actually shake my tail feather.  These were like our answer to all the great British punk and ska music being made at the time but without the crap clothes and spittle.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

MINE

I just realised there's yet another way I'm like Lisa Simpson - I love the saxophone (or as her dad would say, the sax-a-ma-phone).  And the sound of Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons is centred around frontman Joe Camilleri's saxophone stylings.  I've seen the band, way back when in Melbourne, maybe even on a double bill with Paul Kelly and the Dots - but my memory of the early 80s is getting a bit sketchy in parts these days.  (YourZ sez: must have been either 80 or 81 as the band were kaput after that).

Listening to the album (which isn't the one pictured but has most of the same songs on it) I just felt, well, 20 again.  The band's sound moves from vaguely 50s doo-wop through a more rockabilly style - and my favourite song, Taxi Mary, has a real Latin beat.

I also loved Camilleri's follow-up band the Black Sorrows and listening to this CD has just made me more hungry for our household to finally bite the bullet and get a real live turntable - so I can listen to the original Zep album I had - Screaming Targets - and to the three or more Black Sorrows albums that are gathering dust.

By the way, I differ from Lisa in that I'm not an 8-year-old yellow vegetarian cartoon character with a brother and sister who likes to play the blues.  Otherwise, we're pretty close.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

For more information: http://www.joecamilleri.com.au/

ABBA - The Singles The First Ten Years

YOURZ

Mine has been snickering about the chance I might have to review Abba ever since we started this project.  And lo, the bloody pointy stick, damn its pointy stickedness, finally decided to help increase her snicker to a full belly laugh.

Abba were everywhere when I was a teenager.  They were on the front cover of magazines and newspapers, on the television and all over the radio.  They were so popular that as a young high school student, it was a prerequisite to name which Abba chick you'd 'do' (not that any of us really understood what 'do'-ing was all about). 

More importantly, Abba lived in my house.  My sister professed to be their biggest fan and would play them over and over. And over.  And over!  Given their popularity in Australia, it also meant they were never too far from my cultural consciousness, no matter how hard I tried to ignore them.  It seemed cruel that fate (if you believe in it) dictated my sister like this band and not Kiss or Cheap Trick.  And now fate, it seems, is probably laughing its arse off because Mine shares this love.  See, fate, this is why I have a hard time believing in you! 

Oh, and for the record, I was in the Agnetha camp.

VERDICT: THROW IT OUT, preferably into a bottomless abyss where it will never be seen again

MINE

It's a bit hard for me to admit this, but I'm getting a bit sick of Abba.  (YourZ sez: oh happy happy, joy joy!  Can we throw it out then?)  Not that I'll ever get rid of this album, but the cream of it has been sitting on my gymPod ever since I got it, more than a year ago.  Plus I've also got Erasure's version of some songs - from ABBAesque - on the Shuffle so the Swedish group's work tends to run by my ears more frequently than just about anybody else.

Then there's the ridiculous success of Mamma Mia! which I have to admit I saw in the theatre.  I enjoyed the songs, but found the whole storyline (if you can call it that) vapid.  I've avoided seeing the movie.  I actually like Meryl Streep and don't want my regard to be crushed.

As it happens, I wasn't an Abba fan when the band was at its peak, although several of my then-friends were.  Of course the songs entered my consciousness due to the sheer weight of repetition, and as a piano player I recall trying to make the sheet music to Ring Ring sound like it did on the radio.  I failed.

But about 10 years later, I decided I quite liked Abba.  Because nothing fills a dance floor faster than Dancing Queen, and I discovered about then that the dance floor was my favourite place in the world to be.  So I bought this CD - yes, I've had it that long!  It's really great for doing housework to, and is one of the CDs that helps me cook (YourZ sez: so you say but I've never seen a single strudel!).  A classic.

VERDICT:TURN IT UP (YourZ sez: aaaahhhh COME ON, you tease!)

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

(Mine says: and for those of you who are counting, this is our 100th review!  Yay us!)

Weezer - Deluxe Edition

MINE

When the pointy stick landed on this CD, my dear husband did a happy dance around the room.  Seriously.  Because he doesn't just love Weezer, I think he'd have their babies if he could.

While I'm not as committed to the band, I do like the tunes - mostly - with the exception of a few less-than-girl-friendly lyrics and a couple of shouty numbers.  I don't have any great Weezer moments to share with you, so all I can say is it's good music well done, and I'm happy to have it playing around me any time.  In fact...

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

YOURZ

I love Weezer.  No, seriously, I love Weezer.  But not in the fanboy, collecting-every-last-bit-of-merchandise way.  And certainly not in the way Mine would have you believe either.  I love them for the same reason I've mentioned numerous times on these pages - they're lots of fun and they don't take themselves seriously.  They also inspired a whole generation of geeks who previously thought they couldn't be in a cool band. And they also sound fucking huge live too (I also love their Van Halen logo ripoff).  All right, I think I've said love sufficiently enough times for you to get the idea I like them a lot.

The original copy of this album (known as the Blue Album) has been in my collection since it was released.  I was initially attracted to it because the cover looked similar to another favoured album by great Aussie band The Sunnyboys (although I only have this on vinyl... hmm, about time I got in on CD, I think).  While the Sunnyboys name proved to be ironic, Weezer, on the other hand, are a full-winded, clear-throated rock fest of massive proportions.

It seems as though this record was destined to have an impact on me.  First of all, its produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars, a band who I have loved since my teen days.  But more of them later (we'll be reviewing this great band soon).  Secondly, both Undone The Sweater Song and Buddy Holly videos were produced by Spike Jonze, another favourite.  Add to this similar cultural references (Kiss, Ace Frehely, X-men etc) and its as though Weezer and I shared the same childhood.  I wonder if they got beat up as much as I did? 

This copy, the Deluxe Edition, comes with a second CD and a booklet and was released 10 years after the original, which sold ridiculous amounts around the world.  Considering lead Weezer Rivers Cuomo thought the album wouldn't sell more than 100, its done pretty well for itself.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

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

In our collection we also have Weezer (The Green Album), Weezer (The Red Album), Maladroit and Raditude

Pink Floyd - Echoes

YOURZ 

When we first started this project, I wanted to exclude best of CDs.  Mine argued against it mainly because I couldn't, at the time, come up with a satisfactory reason.  She is a girl who likes to know why, dammit all. (Mine says: I wonder why that is? hee hee)

Well, this CD is the best of reasons.  While the individual tracks are outstanding, their context is completely lost.  And Pink Floyd, for all they're known as, are big on context. Floyd releases weren't just a date, they were an event.  Conceptually one of the most ambitious and successful bands in the world, they continue to delight and inspire generations of fans, like very few others bands can do.

But if I've got to do this review, I'm going to have to talk about my favourite Floyd album.  For most, it's a generational thing.  If you're older, like me, it's Dark Side Of The Moon and if you're younger, not like me, it's The Wall.  But not to be difficult, my favourite is neither of these (although both these albums are in my favourites of all time list).  Mine is Wish You Were Here.

I remember buying the album and playing it non-stop, only pausing to turn it over.  I was living by myself in a single room (at the time I was in the defence services - the less said about that the better).  This music took me to places I'd never been before even though I was straight, sober and very, very green.  I loved this album so much.  I still have that copy even though we don't have a record player.  I will never part with it.

As far as Echoes goes, I will take my lead from Mine.

VERDICT: THROW IT OUT and buy the box set

MINE

When the pointy stick landed on this YourZ was a bit surprised to find it in my collection - and I explained it was a radio-industry freebie.  I've mostly ignored this CD because the mere concept of listening to a bunch of Floyd songs NOT in the order they were originally presented - i.e. not on the original albums - seems to me somewhat distasteful.  An opinion I know is shared by the band, whose efforts to stop the single-sale of songs via download has been taking up lots of time in various courts.  I think they won - but who knows?

Anyway, it's kind of strange to listen to Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 when it's not followed by Mother, or to not hear the chinks and chimes of Money following The Great Gig In The Sky.  But what listening to this album made me realise is that I absolutely frakkin' LOVE Pink Floyd.  Me.  The person who turns her nose up at anything remotely prog-rocky in today's music.

Floyd were a large part of my teen years and in fact formed an integral part of my introduction to.... you guessed it... marijuana.  I had a group of friends (Hi Kathy, Joy, Bernie and Cheryl!) and we used to have one afternoon off school each week for sport.  Like we ever raised a sweat.  Anyway our sport consisted of sitting at somebody's house passing the bong, and very often listening to Dark Side Of The Moon.  When we weren't listening to Black Sabbath or Kiss.  Positively stereotypical for the late 70s, don't you think?

But my best Floyd memory is of The Wall and listening to it in the home of a friend (male, not my boyfriend) soon after it was released - late '79.  He put it on the turntable and we lay on his sofa and listened to it.  I think the only thing he said was "Other side?" when side one ended, and all I said was "Yes, please."  I remember walking home afterwards, with the songs reverberating through my head.  So my vote for Echoes shouldn't come as a surprise.

PS I never knew it until we saw a documentary show on the band but Dave Gilmour was a real SORT, wasn't he?  He's aged well, too...

VERDICT: THROW IT OUT and buy the box set

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

Queen - Greatest Hits II

MINE

In our collection, there's a disturbing amount of Queen.  And there's a reason for this.  In my previous incarnation as a creator of radio programming, I once put together a series of vignettes for the Queen's Birthday holiday here in Australia.  This involved sections of interviews with the various members of Queen plus other celebrities, all taking about Queen songs, to be played in front of a Queen song.  And in order to do this, I rang up the record company distributing their music, and received - free - their entire back catalogue of greatest hits.

So it's not entirely strange that the pointy stick hit on Queen.  What is strange is that I've kept all of this.  Especially this one, which has only a few songs to recommend it.  I really disturbed myself by singing along to I Want It All  and I Want To Break Free - but I've always loved Radio Ga Ga.  Go figure.  Anyhoo, time to keep the songs we like, and dump the rest.  I'm sure there'll be no argument from YourZ.  Although the Live At Wembley CD is pretty good.

VERDICT:THROW IT OUT

YOURZ

There's no mistaking that voice, being one of the most recognisable in the world.  Ah Freddy, I can't help wonder what you'd be singing today

Freddy built his career on his operatic range and grand sweeping gestures, which so suited the stadium rock the rest of Queen built behind him.  They've been part of my life since I first heard Night At The Opera in the late 70s, a favourite album of my best friend at the time.  While I would try to get him to share my love of Status Quo, Deep Purple, Zeppelin, Kiss and Cheap Trick, he would try to do the same with Queen (and Nazareth, if I remember rightly).  But it never really took.

Don't get me wrong, though.  I really like Queen a lot.  I've just never owned any of their albums.  What I have owned, over the years, is a succession of the same edition of Queens Greatest Hits (isn't there an old joke about if you leave a cassette in a glove box long enough it will morph into Queens Greatest Hits?). (Mine says: either Ben Elton or Douglas Adams came up with that, can't remember).  As Mine has pointed out, we have a lot of Queen in the collection.  The bugger is the pointy stick landed on this one, instead of Greatest Hits I, which has what I consider to be their best songs.

Oh yes, this does have Under Pressure, with that bass line (ice ice baby...) and Radio Gaga, which apparently inspired Lady Gaga's name, if you believe the hype.  It also has I Want To Break Free, which caused my friends and I no end of amusement when it first came out not because of the campy video that accompanied it but for the overwhelming presence of Freddy's lisp.  Just picture the scene, if you will, of the rest of Queen sitting around in the studio, trying not to laugh as he sings 'I want to bwake fwee, I want to bwake fwee...' and see if you don't laugh too.  Puerile, I know, but I've never said I wasn't.

Anyway, I agree with Mine on this one.  I don't recognise most of the songs on this collection and there's far too much bad 80s reverb on the drums of most of these tracks for my liking.  Let's get rid of the chaff and keep the wheat.

VERDICT: THROW IT OUT

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

In our collection we also have: Greatest Hits, Greatest Hits III, Made in Heaven and Live At Wembley '86

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/