Posts by Doug Collette

If it weren’t for “Eminence Front” as a fairly regular entry into current setlists by the contemporary configuration of The Who, It’s Hard (released 9/4/82) might well be a forgotten entry in the iconic British band’s discography. As it is, this tepid tenth studio album has hardly gotten any more attention than its unsung predecessor Face Dances: at […]

With thirty-five years’ perspective, R.E.M.’s Document (released 8/31/87) remains the dual artistic/commercial pinnacle of their career. The group’s fifth album represents the culmination of their creative growth to that point as well as the certified breakthrough to a wide mainstream audience that had previously eluded them.  Even more keen hindsight reveals it’s a statement of purpose that, at the […]

R.E.M. has treated its catalog to some fairly lavish reissues in recent years and, in that respect, the CD release marking Chronic Town‘s 40th anniversary can’t match archival packages such as 2019’s Monster 25th anniversary expanded edition. But the release of the iconic Georgia-based band’s twenty-minute EP is nonetheless significant as it’s never been available as a standalone […]

It didn’t take hindsight of a half-century to perceive The Band’s live album as one of the highlights of the storied group’s career. Perhaps that’s at least in part because it followed the desultory Cahoots in the sequence of album releases. But it’s also true the quintet’s stellar playing and singing over four late December nights at […]

Time Out Take Five is a regular column comprised of pithy takes on recent jazz releases, spotlighting titles deserving attention that might otherwise go unnoticed. Charles Mingus:  The Lost Album From Ronnie Scott’s – This recently-recovered gem is a clear and comprehensive depiction of the jazz icon’s skills as a composer, musician, and bandleader. “Fables of […]

The combustible chemistry between Neil Young and Promise of the Real has never been fully captured on record prior to Noise & Flowers. Certainly studio efforts like The Monsanto Years and The Visitor contain glimmers of the ensemble’s strength, as is also the case with the live release Earth. But the music on all those titles ultimately becomes bogged down by […]

It is an ever-so-fitting sign of circular closure that Midnight Oil’s final world concert tour concludes right around the three-and-a-half-decade milestone of Diesel and Dust (released 8/2/87). With the exception of the follow-up, Blue Sky Mining, and their possible final record, 2022’s Resist, this veteran band from Down Under has never made rock and roll […]

By the time the Grateful Dead signed with Arista Records, their foray into independent record-making had left them almost as frustrated as their dealings with their initial major label Warner Bros. Granted, their eponymous imprimatur was in operation at about the same time as another massive creative/business effort, the legendary ‘Wall of Sound, but it […]

With nearly a half-century hindsight, the breakthrough that is Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True (released 7/22/77) seems all the more like an ultra-savvy marketing campaign. While just the year before Graham Parker endured “Mercury Poisoning” afflicting his initial two equally-outstanding albums with the Rumour, Howlin’ Wind and Heat Treatment (both of which are superior […]

The Jeff Beck/Johnny Depp alliance as captured on 18 benefits both men creatively and otherwise. For one thing, the album has received more advanced attention than recorded work by either man alone might garner. And while the actor/musician can reasonably gain some measure of catharsis in the wake of his recent public travails, he also […]