MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR  -  THE BEATLES

YEAR:  1967
LABEL:  Parlophone/Capitol
TRACK LISTING:  Magical Mystery Tour,  The Fool on the Hill,  Flying,  Blue Jay Way,  Your Mother Should Know,  I Am the Walrus,  Hello Goodbye,  Strawberry Fields Forever,  Penny Lane,  Baby You're A Rich Man,  All You Need Is Love
IMPRESSIONS:  Put the abyssmal film out of your mind; this is a superb album.  In fact, I've always preferred it to SGT. PEPPER actually.  I mean, just look at the tracks.  The eponymous album opener is one of my favourite Beatle songs ever.  There's the absolute classic "I Am the Walrus" (yet another of my top Beatle tunes).  One of McCartney's best "granny songs" appears in the form of "Your Mother Should Know" and the groundbreaking singles "Strawberry Fields Forever" (which many people think is actually on SGT. PEPPER) and the radio-friendly smash "Penny Lane".  Then, there's possibly my very first ever favourite song:  "Hello Goodbye".  I actually have a very solid memory of myself at 2 years old outside on a sidewalk somewhere toddling along to the sound of "Hello Goodbye" on a transistor radio someone was holding.  I remember very clearly hearing the song and running towards someone unsteadily on my toddler legs.  This has always given the song a mythic quality for me and whenever I hear it I get a lovely feeling of nostalgia.  Even the rather unimpressive "Fool on the Hill" holds a soft spot in my heart because my late friend Peg loved it.  After all this, the album ends with another of my faves ("Baby, You're A Rich Man") and the anthem "All You Need Is Love").  There aren't many albums as impressive as this and it was actually spliced together by adding a side two of singles to a side one originally released in Britain as an EP!
MY FAVOURITE TRACKS:  Magical Mystery Tour,  Your Mother Should Know,  I Am the Walrus,  Hello Goodbye,  Strawberry Fields Forever,  Baby You're A Rich Man,  All You Need Is Love
GUEST ARTISTS:  Mal Evans (percussion on "Magical Mystery Tour" and "Strawberry Fields Forever"), Neil Aspinall (percussion on "Magical Mystery Tour"), George Martin (piano on "All You Need Is Love"), Mick Jagger (backing vocals on "All You Need Is Love"), Keith Richards (backing vocals on "All You Need Is Love"), Marianne Faithfull (backing vocals on "All You Need Is Love"), Keith Moon (backing vocals on "All You Need Is Love"), Eric Clapton (backing vocals on "All You Need Is Love"), Pattie Boyd Harrison (backing vocals on "All You Need Is Love"), Jane Asher (backing vocals on "All You Need Is Love"), Graham Nash (backing vocals on "All You Need Is Love")
FACT SHEET:  MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR is the Beatles' ninth album.  Originally released as an EP soundtrack album for the film of the same name (side one), side two was added to make up a complete album in the U.S. by making side two a collection of recent singles.  The idea for the film was conceived by Paul McCartney as a scriptless coach journey which was broadcast over the BBC during the 1967 Christmas holidays; the film was universally panned but the soundtrack EP/album became a #1 album for 8 weeks.   

EXILE IN GUYVILLE  -  LIZ PHAIR

YEAR:  1993
LABEL:  Matador Records
TRACK LISTING:  6'1",  Help Me Mary,  Glory,  Dance of the Seven Veils,  Never Said,  Soap Star Joe,  Explain It To Me,  Canary,  Mesmerizing,  Fuck and Run,  Girls!  Girls!  Girls!,  Divorce Song,  Shatter,  Flower,  Johnny Sunshine,  Gunshy,  Stratford-On-Guy,  Strange Loop
IMPRESSIONS:  One of the most famous landmark albums in the so-called "alternative" music genre.  Liz Phair had written and recorded these songs and circulated them on cassette tapes DIY-style under the name "Girly Sound" in the summer of 1991 around Chicago.  The 4-track demo cassette began to get serious buzz in the underground music scene and independent music press bringing Phair to the attention of the head of indie label "Feel Good All Over" John Henderson who brought in producer Brad Wood to help develop the songs.  Artistic differences led to the dismissal of Henderson while Wood and Phair worked on what would become the album "EXILE IN GUYVILLE" after the cassette eventually made its way to the head of Matador Records.  The songwriting and performing here are particularly strong with the drum patterns and bass lines structuring around Phair's vocals as opposed to recording the musicians first; this gives the album a really sympathetic and intimate feel.  Like a comet flashing across the sky, Liz Phair would never create anything so groundbreaking or memorable again.     
MY FAVOURITE TRACKS:  6'1",  Help Me Mary,  Glory,  Dance of the Seven Veils,  Never Said,  Mesmerizing,  Fuck and Run,  Girls!  Girls!  Girls!,  Divorce Song,  Flower,  Johnny Sunshine,  Gunshy,  Stratford-On-Guy
FACT SHEET:  EXILE IN GUYVILLE is Liz Phair's first album.  The cover photo was taken by Nash Kato of the band Urge Overkill and the album title was partially inspired by the Urge Overkill song "Guyville".  The original cover concept by Liz Phair was a collage involving "a fat lady in a pool" which was rejected by Matador Records as uncommercial.  The interior cd booklet layout was inspired by the 1952 album "THE JOYS AND SORROWS OF ANDALUSIA" by Lopez Tejera.  The concept of the album was famously described by Phair as a song-by-song response to the Rolling Stones' 1972 album "EXILE ON MAIN STREET"; while to connection between the two albums may be tenuous at times, Phair deliberately sequenced her songs in such a way as to match the song order and pacing of the Stones album. By 1994, EXILE IN GUYVILLE had become Matador's biggest selling album to date and it was also named "Album of the Year" by Spin magazine as well as making many year-end "best of" lists.   

LET IT BLEED - The Rolling Stones

YEAR: 1969

LABEL: Decca/London

TRACK LISTING: Gimme Shelter, Love In Vain, Country Honk, Live With Me, Let It Bleed, Midnight Rambler, You Got the Silver, Monkey Man, You Can't Always Get What You Want

IMPRESSIONS: I'm not the world's biggest Stones fan; in fact, besides "greatest hits" collections (of which I have several) I only have two Rolling Stones albums: this one and EXILE ON MAIN STREET. However, my Dad IS one of the world's greatest Stones fans and this album contains his favourite song of all time: "Gimme Shelter". He always knows when it's going to be a good day when he hears "Gimme Shelter" on the radio. In Stephen Davis' 2001 biography of the group, he describes the album this way: "No rock record, before or since, has ever so completely captured the sense of palpable dread that hung over its era". While that is certainly true of "Gimme Shelter", I don't think it really applies to the album as a whole because, to me, it sounds rather upbeat. There's the soaring choir of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in which the comforting thought that "you get what you need" is an optimistic statement. Then there's the silly abandon of "Country Honk" which is actually a countrified version of "Honky Tonk Woman" and the wild craziness of "Monkey Man", the obvious fun had by all as they cover Robert Johnson's "Train In Vain" (retitled "Love In Vain" here) and the funky groove of "Midnight Rambler". A gloom and doom album it's really not. Sorry, Stephen.

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: Gimme Shelter, Love In Vain, Midnight Rambler, Monkey Man, You Can't Always Get What You Want

GUEST ARTISTS: Leon Russell (piano & horn arrangement on "Live With Me"), Ry Cooder (mandolin on "Love In Vain"), Merry Clayton (vocals on "Gimme Shelter"), Al Kooper (piano, French horn & organ on "You Can't Always Get What You Want"), Doris Troy (backing vocals on "You Can't Always Get What You Want"), The London Bach Choir (vocals on "You Can't Always Get What You Want")

FACT SHEET: LET IT BLEED is The Rolling Stones' 8th British album and 10th American album. It is the last album to feature founding member Brian Jones and the first to include Mick Taylor. Jones appears on only two songs: playing autoharp on "You Got the Silver" and percussion on "Midnight Rambler". The sculpture on the album cover is by Robert Brownjohn. The album cover was one of ten chosen by the Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps in January 2010.