Rod Stewart

If you were around in the 70's you could not of escaped Rod Stewart, the UK singer-songwriter responsible for many of decades top selling records but where do you start if you're not a rabid fan of his given many compilations have been issued in the passing decades most of which had cd re-issues?

At the risk of sounding like boring, I feel his best solo material was recorded for Mercury between 1969 and 1974 taking in such gems as You Wear it Well, Gasoline Alley, Reason To Believe and unforgettably, Maggie Mae.

While some of these albums have been re-issued by specialty labels such as Audio Fidelity and Mobile Fidelity, these discs will be dear to track down regardless of sonic merit  so I'd suggest most would be better of getting new a 3 cd set called "Reason To Believe -The complete Mercury studio recordings" having all the albums and some bonus tracks in a single inexpensive set.

For an overview of his career from the mid 60's to 1990 I feel there's one which is a complete no-brainer  and that's "Storyteller" as it does just that telling the story of Rod's music career over 4 cds that originally came out in 1990 costing a small fortune.

It was recently repackaged but keeping the notes and can be got from Amazon UK for £7.99 shipped. Although a few tracks from the mid 60's were sourced from records, most of this set sounds really good.

I would put this now above "The Story So Far - the best of" a 2 cd set issued by Warner Broa. in the UK in 2003 as Storyteller has more 'classic' Rod while all The Story So Far adds is some remakes and less essential tracks he did with Helicopter Girl even though I bought "Story So Far" on release.

Finally, Rod was an essential part of the Faces who emerged from the Small Faces and you simply have to have a selection of their rootsy bar music that included tracks like Stay With Me and Cindy Incidentally. Although there's a new double cd set due out in October which I hope to get, One that can be got cheaply and is very good is The Best of the Faces (Good boys ...while they're asleep).

Currently available on Rhino and priced at £2.99 on Amazon UK you really cannot go wrong with this single cd retrospective..

Duran Duran lps

This is a all new post for my followers about a band I pretty much grew up with in high school and to whom I have many many recordings by on singles, lp albums and compacts discs.

Japanese Mini lps:
These were a cross between a full length album and a 12 inch single that were issued in lp style jackets in Japan often with a lyric sheet:
Nite Romantics - note this one plays at 45 RPM like a (UK) 12" single but has 4 tracks including Fame a cover of the David Bowie number Planet Earth and Girls on Film.

Carnival - five track album of remixes including My Own Way, Rio, Hungry like the Wolf and Hold Back The Rain (I like the guitar work on that track). Note it is different than the US and Dutch versions of the same title.

Tiger! Tiger! comprises of the 12" mixes of the singles from Seven and the Ragged Tiger plus 12" of Is There Something I Should Know.

There was 2cd set that has these versions on issued in Japan in 1991.

Duran Duran (S/T):
I have two versions because I was Durannie as we who followed them rabidly called ourselves back in the day.
The first was my original 1981 UK lp on EMI which has 9 tracks including To The Shore.
The second is the re-packaged 1983 version for Japan that added the Is There Something I Should Know single to the start of the original 9 track album taking it to 10 tracks. It's very quiet as Japanese vinyl always was and sounds great.

Rio:
Again 2 versions:
The 1982 original UK one
The 2009 re-mastered lp that has two discs of which the first is from the original UK version and the second that plays at 45 Rpm has unique to America versions from their third and final lp version meaning you can play this as the Americans heard it or in it's UK configuration.
It arrived today!!!
The sound quality is marvellous with deep bass clear transients and is very quiet.

Seven and the Ragged Tiger: I have just the UK 1983 edition of this, a often maligned album by them taking in The Reflex, New Moon On Monday which I had the lyrics from smash hits magazine blu-tacked on the bedroom wall and Union Of The Snake.

I never got Arena - the live album that is a kinda of sound track to the sci-fi concert video - on vinyl as this was as I mentioned on the Now post was an era of format change and my first exposure to Arena was via the Capitol/EMI XDR cassette tape and then a few years later the Japanese pressed compact disc.