I didn’t have a clue that I would be listening to Cream’s White Room and Sunshine of Your Love 40+ years later, but even though they didn’t fit the AM Pop I was used to listening to, in '67 and '68, I instantly knew I was listening to something magnificent that would stand the test of time. There’s only a couple of handfuls of artists and songs that did this for me. Janis Joplin’s Ball and Chain, The Doors Light My Fire, Led Zeppelin’s *Stairway to Heaven *and Heart’s Crazy On You are part of those handfuls.
Throughout high school in the mid 80s a friend of mine was a huge U2 fan so while he had all their albums not many other people I knew, or myself, bought their stuff. He of course played the Joshua Tree album for us upon its release and we all knew it was something different and was going to be big. I think we all ended up buying that album.
That’s a great example. U2 was kind of OK, nothing I was too excited about. Fine to listen too, but then came Joshua Tree and boy oh boy was that great. Most of my friends and I bought it also.
Fiona Apple is another one, I didn’t know what to make of her but her music really grew on me. At first I didn’t love her version of Across the Universe but now I like it as much as the original.
The Manic Street Preachers - a Welsh rock band - released an album called The Holy Bible in the mid nineties. The guitarist, Richey Edwards, was the lyricist and he was a very troubled man. The album is political, personal and very difficult in places but it’s also absolutely astonishing. There are dark songs about the Holocaust, anorexia, suicide and death. He references Sylvia Plath and the lyrics are deep and complex and some songs put me in mind of her poetry. But it’s fundamentally still a great rock album musically. There are some great tunes in there.
Shortly after recording the album Richey went missing. His car was found next to a known suicide spot near Bristol. Obviously there are lots of rumours. People claiming they’ve seen I him in India etc but he’s been declared legally dead.
When I first played the album I was already a big fan of the band but this was so dark I found it hard to listen to. Yet I persevered. I’m obviously not always in the right mood to listen to it but I came to love it and I’ve never ever gotten bored of it. I hear some new meaning in the lyrics even now, nearly 20 years later. Easily the band’s greatest album but my least favourite for a while. Now the one I revisit over and over again.
Oh yeah, the Manic Street Preachers… I didn’t know about them before the story of Richey Edwards disappearing broke, of which I read in the German Rolling Stone. About a year later, the rest of the band carried on and released a new album as a trio, Everything Must Go, working in a lot of Richey’s left over lyrics and music. When I first heard “A Design For Life”, I was stunned, but then the next single, “Kevin Carter”, blew me totally off my feet. That’s when I became a fan, and of course I also sought out their back catalog. There are few bands as uncompromising and direct, and yet sometimes so lyrical as the Manics, and I knew from first hearing “A Design For Life” that they’re my kind of band.
