Reviewing your parents' music collection
A banging lead guitar. Song titles that sound like they've sprung directly from Scheherazade's One Thousand and One Nights. Mysterious blue tones framing a sinking orange sun. In case these things don't ring a bell, you might have never listened to Santana's 1972 album Caravanserai before. I never had. My parents own two copies of… Continue reading At the Crossroad: Santana’s ‘Caravanserai’ should leave the vocals behind
It's 1971. Emerson, Lake & Palmer are performing Pictures at an Exhibition at Newcastle City Hall for the first time. A couple of years later my dad will buy the ELP 1979 live album, featuring that concert and will find himself listening to Mussorgsky's melodies for the first time. Struck by the music, he will… Continue reading The Great Gates of Prog Rock Perfection: Emerson, Lake & Palmer reimagine ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’
Maybe you can relate: You've been listening to a song for years and years and suddenly you stumble upon the information that what you thought to be the original is actually a cover version. Think of Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You (originally performed by Dolly Parton) or Tainted Love - you've probably heard the Soft Cell or Marilyn Manson… Continue reading ‘Werbung, Baby!’ or How the Finnish wrote Van Halen’s ‘Jump’
It’s summer 2006. I’m sitting in the back of my Dad’s blue Peugeot 407, next to my brother as we’re driving uphill to a remote village in Northern Italy. It’ll be the farthest I’ve ever been from home. We’re here for our family holidays. And, if I remember correctly, we only have three albums in… Continue reading Same same but different: Listening to ‘The Paul Simon Anthology’ then and now
The Dad Anthology 