Jake Bugg - Shangri La (2013)

19 year old British singer-songwriter Jake Bugg’s rapid rise from obscurity over the last year has surprised many people, most of all the man himself. So quick has his music career gotten up and running he is already releasing his second studio album Shangri La. Bugg had been working in Malibu, California re-recording a song off his self-titled debut album with renowned American producer Rick Rubin when the sessions for Shangri la began. There was no plan to record an album, simply to play around with some songs and record them, something which ultimately developed into the recording of an album.

After the massive success of his self-titled debut which saw him being compared with Bob Dylan, Donovan and others, whilst also being seen as a saviour for music, Shangri La takes the folk sound of his debut but expands it to include other influencesThe Dylanesque folk is still there across the album, but Bugg also delves into punk rock, Brit pop, indie, rockabilly and even folk-jazz. The production on this album is also much greater; something that I guess comes with the territory of working with Rick Rubin, with a much bigger sound overall including a full backing band on most of the tracks. With his move towards a more electric sound, Bugg also had the opportunity to showcase more of his ability on the guitar, proving that he is just as good on the electric as he is on the acoustic. Although his delicate acoustic playing drew plenty of comment on his debut, the guitar remains almost a hidden bow within his repertoire and his playing often appears in the shadow of his vocal performances and song-writing which draws most of the attention. Speaking of his vocals, they continue to standout on this latest offering, if not sounding more mature and complete. Although that folk twang is still there in patches, Bugg also shows off his skills as a ballad singer showing there is a softer side to him as well.

This brings me then to the songs themselves of which many standout. The album begins with the interestingly named “There’s a Beast and We All Feed It”, a song which is similar in style to the more folk-oriented tracks on his debut and has a “Subterranean Homesick Blues” feel to it. This is followed by “Slumville Sunrise”, an electric rockabilly number that contains immense riffage and a pounding rhythm section. Already you can tell after these first two tracks how this album will be quite different from his first album in terms of its greater electric sound. As we head in to the middle part of the album, Bugg begins to change gear and spice things up a bit starting with the sweet indie-folk of “Me and You”. On this track Bugg combines some soothing acoustic playing with a delicate vocal that shows off his softer side, while proving his music isn’t all just built around a hard-edged country twang. This is followed by the anthemic “Messed Up Kids” which is sure to be a live favourite, and the beautiful ballad “A Song About Love” which in my mind could go down as Bugg’s best song to date. This beautiful ballad has a Nick Drake feel to it especially in the verses and sees Bugg show off his vocal range in the chorus proving he can belt out a ballad just as good as a folk rocker. The final part of the album continues the theme across the album where quality overrides filler on most occasions. “Kitchen Table” is a folk-jazz number similar in nature to John Martyn’s Solid Air and combines some great acoustic folk licks with jazzy electric piano flourishes and a great drum track. Then there is the gorgeous “Pine Tree”, an alt-country ballad featuring Bugg on his own singing and playing acoustic guitar in what is one of the more heart felt tender moments on the album. Finally, the album ends with the Neil Young sounding electric folk rocker “Simple Pleasures” and “Storm Passes Away” which sees Bugg end as he started with folk, this time in a similar mould to Woody Guthrie with this very rootsy country number.

Shangri La is a massive step forward for Bugg musically and showcases quite a lot of growth and progression from his first album. It is not a straight out country folk album and contains a lot more musical diversity on it than his debut. The greater role of electric instruments also adds another dimension to proceedings and gives Bugg’s sound that extra maturity, allowing him to play around more with musical ideas and different musical styles. He showcases a greater depth to his vocals, while the added bonus of having an greater electric sound allows him the chance to showcase his guitar playing more than he did on his debut. My only real criticism would be around some of the production which at times I feel Ruben overdoes. This is particularly the case in the adding of a rhythm section and a big drum sound to songs which would have sounded better stripped back with just Bugg playing guitar. However this is just a fussy observation more than anything and the production doesn’t take away from the quality of the song-writing. In conclusion then, I feel Shangri La is a more rounded album and improves on his debut, showing Bugg’s maturity as an artist and offering more versatility musically. All in all a very good album with some really well constructed and nice sounding songs by this great talent, showing that Bugg won’t be a one album flash in the pan.

 

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- Sam

Dusty Springfield - Dusty in Memphis (1969)

There is no doubting that Dusty Springfield was one of the greatest singers of all time, as well as being one of England’s best vocal exports. And it was on her 1969 release Dusty in Memphis where everything came together harmoniously, in a collection of songs that optimises the amazing vocal abilities of this great singer.

Dusty in Memphis was Dusty’s fifth studio album and came at a time when she needed a career boost in order to get her out of the British club circuit and onto a wider stage. So it was with this that she dived head first into American soul music, signing with prominent R&B/soul label Atlantic Records and inheriting a team of producers that included Jerry Wexler who had worked on albums by Aretha Franklin (one of Dusty’s main inspirations). The result was soul and nothing but soul, and it seemed that Dusty had finally found her calling as a singer, with the combination of some great soul songs and Dusty fitting together perfectly like a glove. Backed by a group of studio musicians called the Memphis Cats who had played with Wilson Pickett and Elvis amongst others, and the prestigious singing group The Sweet Inspirations on backing vocals, Dusty delved into the annuls of the then modern day American songbook, taking on songs by some of the best songwriters of the period. Burt Bacharach, Randy Newman, Goffin/King and Mann/Weill originals would all feature, as Dusty put her stamp on some amazing songs and in many cases made them her own. Dusty’s voice sounds mega on here, in what is surely one of the best vocal performances on record. She nails pretty much every song with amazing technique and delivery, with a voice that also sounds soft and silky and that harnesses incredible range and an amazing control of tone.

In terms of the overall sound of the album and on the production side of things, Wexler and co go for a heavily produced sound on here with a full backing band complete with string and horn sections, as well as the prominent use of backing vocalists, not that Dusty needed them of course. This leads to quite a dense layer of sound across the album similar to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, as well as the great recordings of Motown. The extensive nature of the production means that at times it feels like Dusty is having to compete with the massively extravagant instrumental arrangements in order to let her voice shine through. This appears to especially be the case during the choruses. Sometimes I feel they tend to overdo the production side of things rather than just letting Dusty’s voice take centre stage, and that some of the songs would have sounded even better if the instrumental arrangements were stripped right back. However this is just more of an overall observation rather than a criticism, while the heavy production on these songs is no real surprise and was immensely popular on records by soul singers and singing groups during that time.

There are many highlights for me on this album starting with opening track “Just a Little Lovin” which is quite a sexy number with a great vocal and nice arrangement, and the gorgeous “So Much Love” which captures the essence of Dusty so well in what is also one of the more soulful tracks on the record. Then there’s “Son of a Preacher Man” which goes without saying really, and the up-tempo “Don’t Forget About Me” which is more of an R&B-like number that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Stax record. Finally, “The Windmills of Your Mind” is very different from everything else on the record and has an overall eerie mystery to it, whilst also featuring an almost bossa nova styled acoustic guitar accompaniment, and the brilliant album closer “I Can’t Make It Alone”, a track which appears almost like a soul anthem and one that Dusty puts everything she has into.

Time has been kind to Dusty in Memphis, although it was not a great commercial success at the time despite garnering a good response from the critics. It has since gone on to become considered a great album, of which Rolling Stone magazine listed as the eighty-ninth best album of all time, and the third best album in a poll titled “women in Rock: 50 essential albums”. The praise heaped on this album comes as no real surprise when you consider the quality on here and the amazing vocal performance from Dusty herself. Dusty in Memphis was the moment that turned Dusty from a really good singer into a great singer, whilst helping to turn her career around completely. This would arguably become her defining statement as a singer and is also one of the things she will be best remembered for as an artist. Dusty in Memphis is one of the great soul records and contains in my opinion one of the greatest vocal performances. It is truly a great listen and a must for music fans.

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- Sam

The Jam - Sound Affects (1980)

Sound Affects was the fifth studio album by British mod-revival group The Jam. Released during 1980 at the height of the band’s career, a career that would include a run of eighteen consecutive top 40 singles in the UK charts, many deem Sound Affects to be The Jam’s best album and at the very least their most musically interesting. With an overall sound that stuck to their traditional 60s beat influences, but that also branched out to include splashes of R&B and psychedelic rock, this is probably an accurate assessment of one of the 80s most underrated albums but best surprises.

Paul Weller, the band’s front man described Sound Affects as a cross between Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall and The Beatles Revolver, a description that certainly holds true on listening. The sound on the album combines a strong emphasis on rhythm and a prominent rhythm section with pop melodies and the occasional punk rage. The Off the Wall influence comes in the form of the excellent rhythm playing of Bruce Foxton on bass and Rick Buckler on drums, whose pounding bass and drum lines dominates across the album. Their playing is very much a Motown-inspired style and both the drums and bass sound so good on here (a very clean sound) to the point that they often take centre stage as lead instruments, whilst also being an essential part of the overall Jam sound. Paul Weller’s guitar playing, vocals and compositional skills bring in the 60s Beatles influences, punk, as well as a hint of psychedelia. His vocals flow between punk aggression and a mellower pop style similar to mid-60s Beatles, while his guitar playing is a mix of jangly chimes and a heavy distorted drive. On some of the tracks Weller also experiments both with guitar distortion and feedback, as well as the odd sound affect here and there, including a fly buzzing at the beginning of “Music for the Last Couple” and some French audio on the outro of “Scrape Away”.

The tracks on Sound Affects are generally of a high standard all and all, and despite a couple of somewhat lesser tracks most of the material is interesting and diverse. There is melody driven Beatles-like pop in the form of “Monday” and “Man in the Corner Shop”, while “That’s Entertainment”, probably the band’s most well known song is an acoustic mod anthem that forms the basis of a commentary on the drudgery and dreariness of English working class life. The Beatles influence becomes remarkably close on “Start” which includes an exact copy of the bass line and guitar riff from classic Revolver track “Taxman”, while also incorporating subtle R&B influences with a great rhythm track and a backing horn section. Then there are the more up-tempo ferocious punk anthems such as opening track “Pretty Green” with its pounding bass line and “But I’m Different Now with its heavily charged punk guitar. Experimental psychedelic rock also appears with the anthemic distortion driven “Set the House Ablaze” and album closer “Scrape Away”. On this note I would say that psychedelia was just a slight influence on the material here and was more used in an experimental capacity without playing a central role. With this in mind the influence of psychedelic rock and in particular The Beatles Revolver came mainly in the use of studio affects and heavy guitar distortion and echo. Finally, there are also hints at The Jam’s and Weller’s future direction with subtle splashes of R&B here and there. This is evident especially in the rhythm playing right across the album as I have already mentioned, but also on particular songs such as “Boy About Town” and “Start”, of which both contain horn parts and heavy funk-inspired bass and drum fills.

Overall, Sound Affects is a fantastic collection of infectious early-80s pop songs that are dotted with little bits and pieces from all sorts of different musical areas, which although feature do not compromise The Jam’s 60’s pop sound and overall punk ethos. Apart from the general catchiness of the songs and their cleverly crafted pop nature, as well as the interesting experimentation with different sounds and textures, the definite standout of Sound Affects is the rhythm section of Buckler and Foxton, who’s playing make these songs that extra special. Their playing to me is made even more remarkable considering the 80s would become dominated by drum machines and synths, and how also technology often came to overshadow the musical abilities of the people making the music. On listening to this album it is just nice to hear a proper rhythm section made up of proper players playing an essential part to the overall sound on display, of which without whose input the music would be half as good. Weller’s song-writing craft, aggressive vocals, and lead rhythm playing is simply the icing on the cake in what is overall a great 80s album, all be it an overlooked and underrated one at that.

 

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- Sam

Stevie Wonder - Innervisions (1973)

When one attempts to come up with a list of great 70s albums, Innervisions by Stevie Wonder is one of the first that always comes to mind. Released in 1973, Innervisions was Wonder’s 16^th studio album and formed part of an amazing run of great albums for him during the 70s.

The amazing thing about Innervisions is the fact that not only did he produce the album, whilst also compose and play on every track, relying only slightly on the odd helping hand from a session player, but he was also only 23 when it was recorded. The recording of this album was pretty much a one man band, with Wonder playing drums, piano, bass and about fifty thousand different synths and keyboards, or at least that’s how it seemed. This album also represented quite a landmark recording for an African American in popular music, as Wonder became the first black artist to experiment with the newly evolving synthesizer technology and in particular the ARP Synth which he used to compose all the tracks on the album.

The lyrics on Innervisions play an important role and in fact you could make a case for this album being a concept album, with the songs often socio-political themes offering a commentary on early-70s American society. Just some of the things Wonder talks about in his songs include drug abuse in “Too High”, social anger and the poison of city life in “Living for the City”, and political ethics in “He’s Misstra Know-It-All” which in itself was a subtle dig at Richard Nixon. Wonder also has time for optimism and positivity despite the bleak outlook of American society he portrays. Love is a common theme on “Golden Lady” and “All in Love Is Fair”, while focussing on the good things in life and continuing to look upwards are championed in “Higher Ground” and “Don’t You Worry Bout a Thing”.

From a musical perspective Innervisions sticks largely to the soul, funk, R&B hybrid which Wonder had begun to develop successfully during the early 70s, but there are also hints of other influences in particular Latin in “Don’t You Worry” and even reggae in “Higher Ground”. As I mentioned earlier this album was quite revolutionary in its use of synths and keyboards which dominate all the songs across the album. Wonder experimented significantly with keyboards during the recording of this album and the results of this are seen throughout. This is particularly the case in his use of different keyboard sounds to achieve an overall layered and often heavily textured sound that ends up driving many of these songs, songs that are built entirely around piano and keyboard motifs. Wonder’s reliance on keyboards can also be seen in how he chose different sounding keyboards for different songs. On the more funk oriented up-tempo numbers such as “Too High” he tends to utilise more the Fender Rhodes electric piano, clavinet, and Moog synths, while on the soulful ballads such as “Golden Lady” he goes back to the more traditional piano. What this shows is that he knew what he wanted out of the keyboards and was able to match the right keyboard up with the right song, which is probably why the overall keyboard sound of this album sounds as good as it does, while working so well in the process.

In terms of the standout tracks on this album, well there is quality right through Innervisions and it is actually quite hard to find a dud song. Innervisions is definitely one of those albums that is almost completely perfect from start to finish, from the synth grooves of “Too High” to the story book masterpiece “Living for the City” and the amazing one-two album closer “Don’t You Worry” and He’s Mistra Know-It-All”. This is definitely a case of there being no real standout tracks but simply one complete standout album.

Innervisions has developed a strong legacy in the forty years since its release and is now widely considered as one of Wonder’s best albums, if not his best, as well as being one of the great albums in popular music. Rolling Stone magazine even ranked it as high as 23 in their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The praise around this album is no real surprise to me as Innervisions is an amazingly good album of melody, soul, funk and musical experimentation. In my opinion it is in the top five greatest soul/R&B albums of all time and helped to set the bar for future releases within the soul/R&B genre, not to mention its influence on studio production and recording full stop. But what probably makes this album that extra special is how Wonder used all his musical and creative talents to produce a social commentary on early 70s American society like nothing else at the time. He had a definite sense of what was going on and was able to translate it into music in such a vivid way, painting a picture through song of what it really was like in America at the time. Innervisions was the final result of an artist going out on his own musically, breaking away from his Motown routs to take a step into unchartered territory of which the results were nothing short of outstanding.

 

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- Sam