The Beatles—Please Please Me

The Beatles—Please Please Me

Please Please Me—The farther you get back in the Beatles' discography, the less likely people are to remember it. That's not to say any Beatles album, single, or even outtake can be considered obscure, but while Revolver (1966) Sgt. Pepper (1967) are household names, the pre-Rubber Soul (1965) albums are often considered at least partially inessential. Please Please Me was their first one ever (Introducing... the Beatles and Meet the Beatles! [1964] were the first ones to hit the United States), coming on the heels of the "Please Please Me" and "Love Me Do" singles.

Paul McCartney's dissonant rocker "I Saw Her Standing There" opens the album on a high note, importantly showing early on that the band could write a classic all their own. "Misery," written originally for Helen Shapiro, is one of the greatest sub-two-minute pop songs ever. John Lennon's rendition of Arthur Alexander's "Anna (Go to Him)" and George Harrison's of the Cookies' "Chains" (Goffin/King) are somewhat pointless, but Ringo Starr's of the Shirelles' "Boys" is strangely effective. Lennon offers the album's best token cloying-nonsense number in "Ask Me Why" in spite of that being McCartney's reputation.

"Please Please Me," which Lennon wrote inspired by Roy Orbison and Bing Crosby, and McCartney's "Love Me Do" showcase the two men's early vocal harmonies at their best. "P.S. I Love You," the first in a series of postal Beatles songs that would be continued by their cover of "Please Mr. Postman" and "Paperback Writer," is lovably banal. Bacharach/David/Williams' "Baby It's You" was not the best choice for a Lennon vocal, while the dopey "Do You Want to Know a Secret?" and corny theater piece "A Taste of Honey" weren't good choices for anyone. "There's a Place" features Lennon and McCartney in a pleasing baritone range. Only on "Twist and Shout" does Lennon do a cover justice, mostly thanks to his famously pained delivery from a marathon recording session.

That doesn't sound like a wholly impressive set, and for the most part it's not—"Please Please Me" and "Love Me Do" and their respective b-sides "Ask Me Why" and "P.S. I Love You" were hardly vital parts of the package, having likely already been sought by every patron in England in single form. The remaining ten songs, only four of which were originals, were recorded in a single session, live in studio, and while only maybe half those cuts are notable in most any way, the band's restless drive shines through on the finished record. On the whole, Please Please Me is something of a classic, if an odd one, and it's amazing to think that even in their nascent stages as hitmakers the Beatles were this tight as a band, producer George Martin included.

Talk Talk—Spirit of Eden

Talk Talk—Spirit of Eden

Spirit of Eden—Though U2's similar Eno-infused rock soundscapes came years prior, Talk Talk's shift from synthpop to art music was surprising. Almost no artist in that vein headed for the ditch—Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Eurythmics—and others simply made compromises, such as the jagged-yet-accessible stylings of Devo or Gary Numan. Talk Talk was more primed for that shift, considering singer Mark Hollis was more thoughtful and sensitive than his contemporaries. The songs on The Party's Over (1982), It's My Life (1984), and The Colour of Spring (1986) were far from banal, even in the earliest stages—cheaply done perhaps, but the craft just kept getting keener and tighter. Producer Tim Friese-Greene's occasional songwriting input blossomed into a full-blown symbiosis with Hollis, which sharpened Hollis' vision, resulting in more adventurous micromanagement; as a result, The Colour of Spring utilized twice as many session musicians as any other Talk Talk album.

It didn't so much sound like radical change was taking place, but Talk Talk was growing, and Colour of Spring's sales (their best-selling album), along with hit single "Life's What You Make It," gave them more freedom for the follow-up, Spirit of Eden. Hollis said, "Spirit of Eden—I kind of think that was very much, in a way, where all those earlier albums were trying to get to" (1998 TV interview, Okay Tone), and that was shrewd introspection; Eden's personnel—that is to say the band's discrete number of instruments—were pared down from Colour of Spring's line-up, though thanks to shrewd editing and a wider variety of sounds, it doesn't at all seem so. Hollis and Friese-Greene took the resulting recordings and played with each bit of tape until the album's six extended cuts were complete—Hollis being a proponent of first takes: "If you demo a track, no matter how badly you tried to demo it, there will always be a quality within it that you subsequently would try to recreate, which you shouldn't be."

As a result of this holistic approach, Spirit of Eden feels very cohesive, and in fact the first three songs form their own suite, led by the sparkling "The Rainbow," where Hollis sings of justice. The music evokes the intermittently pleasant uncertainty of a circadian rhythm, with certain segments alternating in intensity and length, and how nature and emotion are constantly at odds. The bittersweet "Eden" alternates between promise and mourning—the aural manifestation of a letdown. "Desire," the most rock-oriented tune, fittingly mimics an oncoming storm, yet is defiant; without cracking a smile, Hollis quips, "That ain't me, babe/I'm just content to relax/Than drown within myself," highlighting the sad pointlessness of obsession.

The dirge "Inheritance" exposes the excesses of humanity: "Don't you know where life has gone/Burying progress in the clouds" He subtly digs at faith-based living ("Expecting the dour/To redress with open arms/Ascension in incentive end"), calling the collective "Nature's son," implying accountability and a misguided need for what he describes as "Desperately befriending the crowd/To incessantly drive on/Dress in gold's surrendering gown." The achingly beautiful "I Believe in You" is an uncharacteristically explicit anti-heroin song completed just before Hollis' brother Ed's death by overdose: wondrously dissonant, with the chorus hitting C♯ being one of the most satisfying moments in popular music. The closing hymn "Wealth" is a sentimental resignation to fate which posits that ultimately, Hollis' misgivings about life in general are tempered by his acceptance of powerlessness.

Spirit of Eden didn't showcase anything particularly groundbreaking—the jazz tones and meticulous editing recall Miles Davis' Bitches Brew and Soft Machine's Third—but rather than embracing an experimental bent, Talk Talk polished their recordings to create something not only challenging but profoundly, undeniably gorgeous from start to finish. It stands as not only their high-water mark, but a dazzling achievement in music.

Rockpile—Live at Montreux 1980

Rockpile—Live at Montreux 1980

Live at Montreux 1980—Rockpile was a band that was legendarily heralded for its live performances. It's difficult to find a review on Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, or Rockpile itself without the author mentioning something like that "I Knew the Bride" was butchered on record, but there was rarely any commercial recourse for the average fan to know the difference. Rockpile almost didn't have an album of its own, period—due to contract trifles, Rockpile (Lowe, Edmunds, Billy Bremner, Terry Williams) were forbidden from recording as they were. Instead, the band put out material on the individual albums of Lowe, the principal songwriter, and Edmunds, who favored rock and roll covers. However, this meant the two could not sing on each other's albums, and Bremner, the band's tertiary singer, rarely sung at all. This changed with Seconds of Pleasure (1980), which was a fine effort, but some complained that it ineffectively bottled the Rockpile sound.

As late as the 2000s, there were still few attainable Rockpile discs; the CD reissue of Seconds added the whole of the Nick Lowe & Dave Edmunds Sing the Everly Brothers EP and three live cuts, and at least five notable bootlegs appeared from 1979–1991. There also existed an Elvis cover performed with Robert Plant, oddly (see Concerts for the People of Kampuchea [1981]). Finally, in 2011, Eagle Records mercifully released Live at Montreux 1980—a full concert.

This particular show features a plurality of eight Edmunds selections (insofar that he sings them): Hank DeVito's "Sweet Little Lisa" and "Queen of Hearts" (later popularized by Juice Newton), friend Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk," Don Covay's "Three Time Loser," Graham Parker's "Crawlin' from the Wreckage," Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock," Dave Bartholomew's "I Hear You Knocking," and Otis Blackwell's "Let's Talk about Us," most of which take off in the live setting and are benefited by Bremner's friendly snarl. Bremner himself sings his own "Trouble Boys" and the Louisiana jaunt "You Ain't Nothing but Fine" (Semien/Soileau), and Lowe sings the remainder: his own "So It Goes," "I Knew the Bride," and "They Called It Rock," Pickett/Phillips' "Teacher Teacher," and Mickey Jupp's "Switchboard Susan." All three sing a great rendition of Jim Ford's "Ju Ju Man."

Unfortunately for Lowe fans, his moments are largely lackluster, though this is often because of poor sound recording; Lowe seems not to have been mic'd up correctly at times, mostly at the beginning of "So It Goes" and parts of "Teacher Teacher." The former also doesn't benefit from Edmunds' refrain, which highlights the somewhat perplexing nature of Lowe's difficult-to-replicate studio tricks. The saving grace is that "Switchboard Susan" is presented in probably its best incarnation anywhere—where Jupp's original and Lowe's Labour of Lust (1979) recording lacked a certain facility, it soars here. In truth, however, it's probably fortunate that the band left out lighter numbers like "(I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass," "Heart," "When I Write the Book," and "Cruel to Be Kind," which didn't always flourish on stage.

Predictably, Live at Montreux 1980 feels slightly excessive, especially during long sections of Edmunds' vestigial rock-around-the-clock fantasies, but taken for what it is, it's a mostly great show. The set might have been better with "Born Fighter," "Heart of the City," or "Love So Fine" in the places of others, but as it is, it's a package that was worth the wait.

Leonard Cohen—Various Positions

Leonard Cohen—Various Positions

Various Positions—Leonard Cohen's albums all exist at roughly the same level of literacy, which is unsurprising given that he was already an established writer and poet by the time of his debut, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967). There's not much to differentiate them on paper but for that the titles sometimes give away the overarching themes or morals (e.g. Songs of Love and Hate [1971]). They are more commonly defined by their production values. Cohen has gone on record saying he feels his debut was overproduced, and there are detractors when it comes to New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974) and Death of a Ladies Man (1977). The latter was augmented by Phil Spector and is probably Cohen's most controversial record, the claims there being legitimate. New Skin, on the other hand, was produced by John Lissauer, and is only so involved in comparison to Cohen's other albums.

Recent Songs (1979) was something of a return to the drawing board, sounding almost like a matured Songs from a Room (1969) with more tasteful arrangements. Cohen did very little professionally in the ensuing five years, but slowly compiled the writing that would turn into Various Positions. He reunited with Lissauer when it was time to record, who had gone on to other ventures after being Cohen's bandleader for a number of years in the '70s. By 1983, times had changed, and Cohen had turned to composing on a Casio keyboard, which formed the basis for the striking opener, "Dance Me to the End of Love." Its lyrics were inspired by the true tale that in concentration camps, captives "would be playing classical music while their fellow prisoners were being killed and burnt." (Dave Thompson, 1000 Songs That Rock Your World). The sunset serenade "Coming Back to You" details the realization that a lost lover trumped the experiments that followed, while the funereal "The Law" is like a gangster's apology. "Night Comes On" offers a look into Cohen's vivid, archetypal dreams in triple meter.

The celebrated "Hallelujah" appears here in its original incarnation, which is sometimes said to be not even close to the best version. While it's true that subsequent performers brought out other strengths in the song, Cohen's original is unique for his charismatic baritone and the character of its chorus. However, the album's real gem is the forgotten "The Captain," which is smartly musical, funny, and literate all at once, owing as much to Lissauer's arrangement as it does to the poem, which Cohen had been performing live as a spoken-word piece. "Hunter's Lullaby" evokes the sentiment of a man searching for his destiny, told from a detached point of view. "Heart with No Companion" is a charming ode to restless souls. "If It Be Your Will" offers a glimpse into Cohen's torturous spirituality ("Let your mercy spill/On all these burning hearts in Hell") in the guise of a gentle paean.

It's easy to dismiss Various Positions as just another veteran artist's experiment with special effects. But it's possible that it was his strongest collection of songs ever, at least on some level—although the production sometimes sounds dated, there's not a bad piece of writing in the whole set, and it's more concise than many of Cohen's earlier efforts. For this reason, Various Positions should come to be considered a misjudged classic.

Joni Mitchell—Blue

Joni Mitchell—Blue

Blue—During the 1960s, Joni Mitchell was known more as a songwriter by repute than recognizance. Her songs "Both Sides Now" and "Chelsea Morning" had been performed by several artists, most notably by Judy Collins, who won a Grammy for her recording of the former. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young performed the best-known version of "Woodstock" on their album Déjà Vu, among others. But Mitchell's own Song to a Seagull (1968), Clouds (1969), and Ladies of the Canyon (1970) were received with increasing acclaim; when the next decade rolled around, Mitchell's star began to grow, and she became known more for being a performer in her own right. However, she lacked a signature record, as her first two were produced uniformly as middle-of-the-road folk, and her third played more like a collection of disparate tunes than anything that spoke to a concept.

Following Ladies of the Canyon, Mitchell took time off to travel, interrupted only by a performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, when she played eight songs from Clouds and Ladies, as well as three new songs: "California," "A Case of You," and "My Old Man." Those three upbeat, optimistic songs came about with the onset of Mitchell's relationship with a young James Taylor, both as lovers and musical comrades; aside from touring together, Taylor would play guitar on the studio recordings of the three aforementioned songs, while Mitchell would provide backing vocals on Taylor's Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. But the restless Mitchell and the troubled Taylor would only last about a year together, and the split would send them in different directions. Taylor would go on to further his highly successful if uneven career, while Mitchell would return to Los Angeles to record Blue, her bright outlook now marred by a string of failed (and well-publicized) romances.

The frolicking opener "All I Want" exhibits Mitchell's free-wheeling spirit in contrast to the reserved approach of contemporary female artists. "I want to wreck my stockings in some jukebox dive," she proclaims while simultaneously acknowledging the hurt that has arisen from her missteps and the hints of self-criticism that she allows only so briefly ("I love you when I forget about me"). "My Old Man" details the ups and downs of new love, how "He's the warmest chord I've ever heard," and "when he's gone/Me and them lonesome blues collide/The bed's too big/The frying pan's too wide." The cozy "Little Green" predates the rest of the album; it became known decades later that Mitchell wrote it about her daughter, whom she gave away in 1965. The joyous "Carey," the album's most colorful song, is about a real person she met in Matala, Crete, the self-proclaimed "best cook in the area" with a "flaming red personality" (source). The encapsulating dirge "Blue" addresses directly the melancholy that peppers the album—around half the songs mention the color by name, sometimes in more intriguing ways like her daughter's eye color ("Little Green") or the glow of a television screen ("A Case of You").

"California" opens the second side with the same sort of whimsy as the first, with Mitchell contrasting her adopted home of California with the places she'd seen in her travels, sometimes with amusing anecdotes that suggest her resilience ("I met a redneck on a Grecian isle/Who did the goat dance very well/He gave me back my smile/But he kept my camera to sell"). The vortical "This Flight Tonight" represents her burning desire for a lover she's just left behind, but also the turbulence ("I hope it's better when we meet again, baby"). "River," a masterstroke, morphs "Jingle Bells" into a threnodic admittance of self-disdain, hopelessness, and escapism. "A Case of You" is a deceptively cute song about knowing the tragic flaws in a relationship will someday be too much to overcome, having evolved from an earlier incarnation as a simpler maritime analogue. "The Last Time I Saw Richard" sees Mitchell refuting a cynic, only to later find herself in the situation he forewarned; nevertheless, she assures herself, "Only a phase, these dark cafe days," ending the album on a curious but poignant note of optimism.

Joni Mitchell generally kept a healthy distance between herself and her music for the most part until Blue, choosing more to embrace the holistic ways of the folk scene. With Blue, she broke that barrier, reemerging from her hiatus with an evolved approach that continues to be emulated. It may not sound like such at times, but Blue was the most major work by a woman in the rock era—at the time most certainly, and it possibly still is.