We couldn’t have been happier when the New York Times finally took down their Times Select pay wall, allowing free access to nearly all of the illustrious paper’s articles since 1981. While we love reading old reviews, news stories and columns from some of the best music journalists in the history of the game, we don’t like paying $3.99 to read a 500-word article. Mr. Sulzberger, tear down this wall!
We’ve been bookmarking some of our favorite articles from the vast NYT archives, and recently we realized we should probably share the links so people don’t have to enter 100 different search phrases like we did. This week’s B List compiles one great article from each year between 1981-2007:
1981: Tom Petty: Ready to Fight the Good Fight [May 6th, 1981]
”A lot of our fans have been with us for a long time, and I think they trust us,” the 29-year-old singer, songwriter and guitarist said recently. ”MCA has done a great job selling our records, but they couldn’t see the reality of what it’s like on the street – they couldn’t see that raising the album’s price wouldn’t be fair.”
1982: Talking Heads Fans Get a Night to Remember [August 23rd, 1982]
”THIS ain’t no party,” the Talking Heads warned gravely a year ago when they made their most recent concert appearance in the New York area. But the group’s expanded lineup, with a vocalist, guitarist, percussionist, extra bassist, and keyboard player added to the basic Talking Heads foursome, belied those words. Their shows were parties -joyous, celebratory, and loose.
1983: Police perform for 75,000 at Shea [August 20th, 1983]
”We’d like to thank the Beatles for lending us their stadium,” said Sting, the bassist and singer of the Police, near the end of the trio’s concert at Shea Stadium.
1984: Miles Davis Returns With Revamped Band [June 24th, 1984]
This revamped unit provides richly layered, rhythmically emphatic accompaniments for Mr. Davis and for two other absorbing soloists, the saxophonist Bob Berg and the guitarist John Scofield. The earlier group sounded like a collection of competent but uninspired individuals. Now Mr. Davis has a real band , and like all his better bands, it is an instrument that he plays as deftly and dramatically as he plays the trumpet, an extension of his own personal sound.
Read on for many more articles, reviews and columns from the Grey Lady…
