Looking back at M J's finest albums

Some periods in your life tend to be very much connected with external events such as polical history, the whole hype around a film, tv show or for that matter a record.

Given the last time I wrote about him here was way back in 2010 it's time to move on.

I can remember the hype around this Michael Jackson's first solo album for Epic Records in the Fifth Form around September and October of 1979 having read 208 magazine, the teen monthly issued by Radio Luxemburg with features on him and his then upcoming single Don't Stop Til You Get Enough  sandwiched between the ads for Boots No.7 cosmetics and girls intimate products.

Clearly that magazines target was teen girls but they did cover soul and funk music which was popular at the time well and it was clear Big Things were expected of this album.

In due course they did being the home of Off The Wall, Rock With You (the single contains added hand claps) and the poignant She's Out Of My Life.

At this point strangely enough people had forgotten his Motown solo career starting as it did with Got To Be There and running for four solo lps, one being the Ben soundtrack something that British Motown put right in that gap between his Epic albums when they re-released 1975's excellent One Day In Your Life from the Forever Michael album and had a #1 hit with it in the summer of 1981.

That is my British original orange Epic label original which came in a gatefold sleeve which unlike later copies didn't replace the original Rock With You for the single version.

After Off The Wall his next project emerged around October of 1982 with the relatively low key The Girl Is Mine colaberation with Sir Paul McCartney which followed from Michael's cover of his Girlfriend on the previous album.

Like Off The Wall, Thriller was concieved as a luxury project so had a gatefold lp jacket  this time taken up with a posed photograph and the album lyrics this time on the lp inner sleeve.

It was a slow album to sell initially not being helped by being released into the mainly British New Romantic invasion by such acts as ABC, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet whose sound tended to eclipse American soul and funk although it was Shalamar's finest hour in the UK.

Eventually aided by such upbeat numbers as Billy Jean and especially Beat It with Eddie Van Halen's  guitar solo and ground breaking videos, it took off to be one of best selling albums in the UK and the topping the Billboard sales for 1983.

Amazingly six out of nine tracks made it to 7 inch vinyl  or got radio playlisted with the last one being P.Y.T. in early 1984 in the UK.

November's premier wherever in the world you were of the Thriller extended promotional video was an event few of us can forget it moved video on as much as Girls On Film did two years before and like that not necessariily without a little controversy either.

That is my Dutch pressed copy from 1983 - it has Co-production credits to Michael Jackson on the jacket unlike first pressings - and this edition used the American mastering on stampers rather than one made locally.

If you look closely at the label, you will spot both the full track length and also the introduction lengths marked  for DJ's.

This is the promotional leaflet outlining previous Jacksons and Michael Jackson albums included in mine but mine being an early copy makes no reference to Compact Discs and "For Europe cds from the then CBS Group didn't come in until around 1984/5.

For me these two albums remain his greatest solo achievements, the point where he was setting the standard in Soul and Funk rather than playing catch up as with Bad and especially 1991's Dangerous where he copped the New Jack Swing style but seemed out of his depth as some of the controversy  around early versions of lyrics showed what may be fine for some could never be acceptable for a person whose appeal was more universal.

The heart speaks in whispers

After a gap from her 2010 album, The Sea, Ms Bailey-Rae returns with her new album  released February 12 in which she explores feelings and emotions with a real sense of groove such as the ballad Do You Ever Think Of Me? or Night which closes the album.

In the song Have You Ever Been To The Moon  she speaks of budding romance using space travel imagery. While originally some of the tracks were recorded at Capitol, Hollywood  she recorded more with Los Angeles's jazz, soul and fusion musicians much of which clearly rubbed of in he sessions judging by the arrangements. 

Just for once I managed to borrow a MiniDisc recorder to copy this to joining her previous titles for posterity's sake even though these days they're going onto micro sd cards for my Fiio X3 player.

Recommended.

Rumer:the albums

This weeks featured artist is a Pakistan born Britisher going by the stage name of Rumer ('real' name Sarah Joyce) with her new lp entitled Into Colour released this month that features the much airplayed track Dangerous.

It's usually a dangerous task to define an artist by others, but it's fair to say her style is very much routed in the singer songwriter mode and has many things in common with the late Karen Carpenter, which as seasoned blog readers know was the stuff very much on my stereo back in the 70's when I was a child (one can hardly say growing up with a straight face!).

Much to some peoples surprise in 2012 she released this album, Boy's Don't Cry which was a covers album drawing from the 70's although the lead off single P.F.Stone actually goes back to the 60's.

Initially some folk issued groans thinking she was jumping on the lucrative covers bandwagon but she makes every single song on it sound as if it was her own. 

This was the album that started off her solo career, 2010's Seasons Of My Soul which as belatedly issued in the States the following year featuring the singles Slow and Aretha which were followed by an EP recorded with Burt Bacharach on download and very limited 7" vinyl.

She performed A House is not a Home, a  Burt Bacharach and Hal Davis song at the White House May 9th 2012 event honouring Burt.

Rumer's lp's feature different cover art from the corresponding cd and digital download editions usually designed by her and it is in that form  my collection of her recordings exists and is enjoyed.

I have made 'vintage' minidisc editions of these albums for posterity with the first two combined to a single 'extended play' disc.

The Second Time Around

And it is in more ways than one!

The soul music group Shalamar formed in 1976 from three dancers who appeared on the US black music show Soul Train were a passion of mine in the late 70's, early 80's being one of the acts that were the link between the seventies Soul (think Ojays' and solo Smokey Robinson) and the Funk that became prevailed as the main genre of black music in the 80's.

Sufficient I feel to say I bought the 45's usually as imports cos they were cheaper and many of their albums that were very satisfying in themselves having ballads as well as uptempo stompers you can dance to.

Of the albums of these that held and still hold great interest for me they are Big Fun issued fall 1979, Three For Love issued January 1981, Friends Early summer '82 and The Look issued May of 1983 and the last album by the classic original line of Jody Watley, Howard Hewitt and Jeffrey Daniels.

Jeffery pioneered the 'Moonwalk' first shown on BBC UK tv's Top Of The Pops in 1982 and was begged by Michael Jackson no less for the secret of them moves!

The records remain in my collection but like many acts it took a while before anything outside of a compilation got issued in the cd era.

That takes us back to the title of this post because in so far as the UK was concerned for a brief point Friends and The Look were issued around 1983/4 when the label was being handled by Warner (WEA) as straight cd issues - no bonus tracks - but had been out of print for a long while. These issues commend a very high price on the collectors market.

In 1996 Sequel Records part of the big re-issue group Castle Copyrights issued all four of these albums on cd, with Big Fun and Three For Love being issued for the very first time with bonus tracks.

It wasn't long however before this set of re-issues themselves were deleted and following the formation of Sanctuary Records from Castle Copyrights and the issuing of new compilations including the nice various artists Soul Classic Soul and Solar Classic Disco two cd sets in late 1999, attention again was placed on revitalizing the Shalamar catalogue.

In 2002 the entire Shalamar album catalogue was re-issued from 1977's Uptown Festival to 1990's Wake Up with new liner notes featuring interviews with Jeffery and Howard and lots of chart related facts.

It was and is a great idea but this set of issues have some flaws for the serious fan.
The first thing is like many contemporary albums an attempt was made to make everything sound loud so the quiet ballad You Can Count On Me has the same average level as a track like Dead Giveaway on the 2002 The Look cd which it never did on vinyl.

They also seem to attempted to remove any hiss and pops from the original tapes - I'm not sure these tapes are the actual 'master tapes' so much as copies of - and this has left the high notes sounding brittle and liking any sense of space around instruments or vocals.

You can hear a filter on the high notes on the intro of You Can Count On Me being lifted electronically on the louder passages which is distracting.

On the 2 albums on one cd issue of Big Fun and Three for Love I was taken aback to see they had shortened several tracks for 12 seconds or sometimes longer compared with the 1996 cd and original vinyl albums and used much shorter edits of Right In The Socket and Full Of Fire with the first song losing over two minutes!

To give you an idea how this impacts on it if you took the two albums minus any bonus tracks, the 1996 issues would run for 80:56 minutes and the 2002 a mere 74:50.

Nowhere in the notes of the 2002 cd does it mention this just proudly informing you of the bonus of The Second Time Around (edit) which was the 45 version (the lp version runs for 7:06) which how they got it all onto one cd!!! In so far as the first two albums go there are more bonus tracks - the edited singles versions - on the 1996 versions too.


Now my original 1996 Three For Love cd got lost in a move several years back and so I ordered up a complete set of the four 1996 cds used and was taken aback by the differences.
Now for The Second Time Around, I'm reunited with the cds that sound really like the vinyl albums I love.
Deja vu!

The Sea and Soldier Of Love

No! We're not going to the seaside although that would be rather fun but it's the name of Corinne Bailey Rae's new album issued in the UK on Virgin on February 1st.

It's been a good while in the making from S/T which sold four million copies world-wide and picked up several awards through the untimely death in 2008 of her partner. 

Many of the songs such as the opener 'Are You Here' are built on insistent bass riffs and another 'The Blackest Lily' is driven by heavy bass and rock guitar solo a reflection of her past involvement in rock.

Stylistically many of these songs are slow reflective pieces with some uptempo numbers added to avoid the drift toward the maudlin.'I Would call It Beauty' is a gorgeous slow piece.

Of the ballads 'The Sea' a piece inspired by the downing of her Grandfather, has lush beatlesque qualitys and closes the album on a high. My copy was the digipak but really it's more a mini lp style gatefold sleeve minus a inner sleeve.

I'd grade it three and a half out of five which may sound low but this album is heads and shoulders above much of what R&B divas come up with lyrically and stylistically and is a slow grower.

It seems so long from the groups last releases Lovers Rock Live never mind the Lover's Rock itself.
In that time much in the World has changed and not necessarily for the better.
The good thing I would say about this album is just that - it's basically the same vibe - just updated with lyrics that match our needs today surrounded as we are by conflict and mutual misunderstanding.
As ever Sade have come up with sophisticated pop, with heartfelt lyrical themes and lithe acoustic guitars often played against snappish synthetic beats. The lead single Soldier Of Love is aurally ornate, with military-issue snare drumming. Be That Easy is feathery country soul, and In Another Time waltzes slow to a minor key. There’s no big-beat single, nor is their any of the all too prevailing auto tune. Strongly recommended.