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Great to see that you're making so much progress with these reviews. Any chance that you could do a zoom review with one of the acclaimed music forum members who gave the album a high rating in the latest forum poll? Some of the forum members have demonstrated superb skills when describing why a particular album moves them. Unfortunately, I am not one of those skilled members.

Great song That's the way love goes #1.

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Thanks, Dan. It was good to hear your thoughts on the album. I agree that it has a tighter sound than most reggae. That’s a good way to put it. Steel Pulse wanted to do something different in terms of genre. They wanted to experiment with faster and more complex rhythms, sometimes incorporating elements of rock and Latin jazz (particularly in Man No Sober). it actually took me a while to warm up to this album. At the time I wasn’t a Reggae listener at all. I heard this album before i Steel Pulse before I ever heard Bob Marley.

Lost my virginity to this album

Thnx for the review I inherited a large synth new wave collection with included a copy of this... could you do more Brian Eno reviews i'm curious what you think I have a tons of those 2 ;-)

My daughter was in a production of Hairspray. "Hair" spent 28 weeks at number 1 in Australia. In 1969, we only had 3 number albums all year!

You did not rate my favorite album of all time a 5.4/10

I tend to think one of the things that jazz kept, or introduced, when it sort of coagulated in the late 19th century, was the notion of strict bar lines, where as blues, particularly early blues, kept it loose. When drummers became de rigueur in Chicago int he 40's, things begam to tighten up. Oddly, a few years after that, jazz started getting looser!

I liked this a lot when I first heard. And then, literally the second time I heard it as they say in the classics, my estimation of it as an album plummeted. Well, not plummeted but I found myself thinking "It's too safe, it's not weird enough. Why isn't Katie weird anymore? I want weird Katie back!!". My estimation od it was somewhat righted after her next album, which is her real stinker.

You know the bands or acts you are supposed to like but just can't get into. All my DNA says I should love the New Pornographers, but geez louise, I just can't get a grip on them, they just bounce off me. They are the perfect band for ageing never quite hip hipsters like me, but I cannot dig 'em. Know what I mean?

I'll defend most things jazzy, but Ornette Coleman is a bit beyond me. I don't know if I have shared this before, but I once, in the pre-social media age, described one of his albums as having the sound of "a large waterfowl being sodomized with an eggbeater". I saw him, about 15 years ago, I actually quite enjoyed it. His son is an awesome drummer.

I played this album all the time back in its day. This, and Trilogy, are their 2 best albums imo, although Tarkus is very closely behind them.

What an album (although their sophomore was even better)! I just loved their sound. Somehow, Robin Trower managed to play blues guitar over classical/ baroque music! I have no idea how he did it. This is a superbly inventive piece of work: Keith Reid's surreal lyrics over Gary's wonderfully different tunes and unexpected cord-changes. BJ's drumming was different and original, while Matthew Fisher's Hammond made my hair stand on end - especially on the final track that you mentioned. Fisher and Trower together made the album worth buying for that one track alone. (Incidentally, I mentioned elsewhere that I grew up in Croydon; however, I had no idea that Matthew Fisher lived only a couple of miles away!) Unless I misunderstand you, you speak as though the album came first. In fact, the reverse was true: AWSoP was such a massive hit (as we all know) that an album had to be found pronto).

Thank you for reviewing this groundbreaking and mind-blowing album! I grew up in Croydon, S. London, and was working in a department store there in 1968 when a batch of this brand-new album came in for sale. I could hardly believe my eyes - and, later, my ears! I immediately bought a copy, feeling as though I had discovered the Philosopher's Stone! (At the same time, CBS released a sampler called Rock Machine: I Love You, and Brandenburg 3, movement 2 was on it - the least typical track to choose as it was all totally extemporised from the only few bars that Bach wrote for that movement. The track was spacy and weird, which was fine, but it had zero to do with Bach!) I already loved Bach, especially his organ music, but this album was something else! Every line was stunningly clear, so much so that for the first time I was hearing Bach in 3D. As far as I know, the first 5 Carlos albums were all released under the name of Walter, initially. Anyway, thank you for your review; I thought I knew all about Carlos, but I still learned a lot from you.

Hey Dan, I have a question for you!! So I’m considering making videos here pretty soon, and I wanna do like potential play throughs and stuff like that of Floyd Samson songs and stuff, was wondering how whenever you make videos how you avoid like copyright and all that, I’m not entirely sure about how all that works and stuff, and was just curious

Fantastic album. Completely entranced me as a kid listening to my parents' 76 version on vinyl. Despite missing certain elements, I still like the original mix more than the remix from the 80s.

They are all classic albums, Okie or 5 are his best for me.

You do a great job trying to come to terms with The Specials first incarnation. Their self-titled debut is an absolute classic. And probably the one album release by The Specials that qualifies as the 2-tone/British Ska sound you were alluding. By their second release more Specials they had moved into all kinds of disparate musical areas. So In the Studio is really an extension of that. By 1984 most of the original Specials had left Dammers almost alone. Just the drummer remained. And if In The Studio had a weakness it was the loss of Terry Hall/Neville Staples the primary vocalists on the first two albums. I struggled with this album at the time, having loved the first two. But revisiting it a couple of years ago, I think I have developed a taste for the styles Dammers was aping. At the time the move away from the ska sound disappointed me. I am pleasantly surprised this made the list. Hopefully their more cohesive efforts show up later. I enjoyed your review, my only surprise being you didn't know more of their music. I thought they were a British institution.

Legend 🖤

Dan, thank you for recognizing this album. It's been one of my three absolute favorite LPs of all time, for years. Edgar Allan Poe is my second favorite author, and I do appreciate what the Project did with his writings on this album, and then again several LPs later. Pilot being the consistent backing band for several albums out makes it even better. (The two Pilot records Parsons produced were great; and the two he didn't weren't. Similarly, the two that he produced for Al Stewart were, I think, Stewart's best; while the others were definitely good, but a little thin in comparison. ~Parsons has the touch~.) I call most of the work of the APP art rock, bordering seriously on prog (the drums hold it back a bit, that's all), but it's not a big issue with me: Either way, it works, and fantastically. Looking back from having listened to their entire catalog, over and over again, it's funny they used so many vocalists, when I think the hands-down best singer they ever had was right there, all along: Eric Woolfson. (A few of the singers they employed were even a tad hard to take, Lenny Zakatek, for example.) But it has to be said that of the songs Arthur Brown sang on, he was born to sing those, no better choice in the whole world. Brown's intonations and entire delivery was perfection, and then some, expressing Poe's ideas, pointedly, if not downright frighteningly. And then, in the instrumental department, the APP captured the mood and plot of one of Poe's best stories, 'The Fall of the House of Usher', as well musically, as Poe did in words. ... In later years, I personally call the APP the Parsons-Woolfson Project. Nothing against Alan; but both to memorialize Eric, and the fact that Eric Woolfson's contributions were equal in measure to that of Parsons. I imagine the record company went with Parsons' name, as he was somewhat known; though I'm not sure how much fans at the time really read the fine print on records to note how much he had formed some of the finer points of, say, Dark Side of the Moon. In closing, I'd like to say how pleased I am to have found the piano music to Tales of Mystery and Imagination, the whole book modeled exactly, and complimentarily, after the design of the original 20th Century issue LP.

The Band's first two releases are among my favorite albums of all time. There are good parts of all their later releases (I am not familiar with the post-Last Waltz reformation.) And this live release is one of the best representations of what made them great. As you mention the versatility, the musicianship, and unlike you I think the three vocalists are presented well. Maybe not as strong as their studio releases. And primary songwriter Robbie Robertson (who rarely sings with The Band) writes some exceptional songs. They can also do wonderful covers and their version of the Marvin Gaye track Don't Do It, outshines the original. The addition of Allen Tousaint's horn players and his arrangements make this release refreshing. The Genetic Method, Garth Hudson's long intro to Chest Fever really highlights his genius and mad-professor approach to instrumentation. I am hoping you enjoy any studio releases by them more. I imagine at least a couple are upcoming.

I probably bought this album in 1969 as a 17-year-old. New Zealand at the time was at least six months behind the rest of the world, irksome to me as a Beatles fanatic who wanted the latest albums as they came out. Switched On Bach introduced me to the music of Bach, and I loved the album to bits. I also liked the sequel, which included works by other baroque composers. Then Carlos released Sonic Seasonings, a double album featuring a musical interpretation of each of the seasons, one season per side. It was a relatively early example of ambient music, and I loved that as well. I seem to remember the liner notes indicating that it had been recorded on at least a 24-track machine (possibly more!) so the success of Switched On Bach may have enabled Carlos to purchase or make such a machine. Unfortunately these albums aren't available on Spotify. I'm able to listen and reminisce about all the other albums of my youth, pity about these ones! It will be a great shame if Carlos sinks into obscurity as the generations progress. Switched On Bach is a truly great album, particularly because, as you say, it had to be recorded monophonically, track by track. And it sounded sooo groovy in 1969 with all those fantastic new sounds. I bet George Harrison thought so too, because he got himself a Moog Synthesizer and used it fairly extensively on the Abbey Rd album. I don't know if Carlos' examples of works by Romantic composers -- Beethoven's 9th, for instance -- were polyphonic but they were certainly had a more sophisticated sonic soundscape than Switched On Bach. Great review, by the way.

Interesting concept and approach. Wishing you all the best and thanks for this.

My brothers love Megadeath!

One of the albums that gives the term "contractual obligation" a GOOD name. Also, an excellent album cover.

Great album.

I used to have this album on tape many years ago. At the time I really loved it, so thanks for bringing it to my attention again. 😎

Shades of the Small Faces is the closest comparison, and the Rolling Stones as far as the Stones were influenced by the Faces. I love the Black Crowes but the second album is far more evolved. Seeing Things is the other highlight on this one that you didn't mention.

My father owned this album (with the second version of the cover, this being the first I'd learned of an earlier rejected cover) and its 1973 sequel 'Switched-On Bach II', and these served as my introduction to Bach, at least in recorded terms. It has been many moons since I last listened to either of these LPs, but I do remember having always enjoyed them. My father also owned a copy of 'Walter Carlos' Clockwork Orange', from 1972, another evocative and bracing venture, which helped form my impressions of the film 'A Clockwork Orange' many years before I actually ever saw it.

I've been mentioning This Heat on music channels for some years, always to a deafening silence. Oh well, it's their loss. 'Every straight road leads home, home to Rome'.

💖J J Cale - "Naturally" ("Okie" & "5")! THANK-you for inspiring me to dig them out my (EEK! Now *antique*!) album collection! 💖

this was a phenomenal review from front to back. ♡

I've always been interested in hearing this. The painstaking issues recording it you described is exactly how I imagine it would have been. Torturous. It's no wonder that there wasn't a Goldberg Variations follow up! I have to add that the wonderful Delia Derbyshire (the mad woman of Maida Vale) had a synth-based rock band White Noise using early VCS3s in early 1968. She arranged for Pink Floyd to get their first VCS3, that they used on dark side of The Moon. Delia Derbyshire is one of my heroes!

Terrific record. I was just listening to some JJ (Troubadour) yesterday. if I could play guitar like anyone, it'd be JJ Cale.

great review. i was excited to see this on the list because this heat has been an obsession of mine for most of my life. like jaki liebezeit, charles hayward fell into my world without precedent. i agree that there's an art to balancing "strange" with "serious" when it comes to experimental music, especially of this variety. it's fascinating how technical competence seems to play into the final result even invisibly when it's not on display. the recording quality is something i've also tussled with for a while. there's the diy approach from ground up that i really appreciate, but i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little disappointed when the 2006 remasters came out without a dramatic bump in audio clarity. sometimes i think i prefer their peel sessions just for the higher fidelity of sonic chaos.

Alright Dan, I remembered another band and album that's strangely not found on the Acclaimed list. I usually don't take to punk but this is described on Wikipedia as classic anarcho-punk. The voice is certainly British punk that usually turns me off, but any of the meaning that I can glean from the lyrics is class conscientious politicizing, which I do personally enjoy. Maybe you already have heard them and do or don't have an opinion. The music is raw but the rhythms are nimble and often complex. If they had a friendly front man like Dave Grohl, or something, I think they could have had commercial success. The band is SubHumAns, the album is From the Cradle to the Grave. Looking forward to your thoughts.

Hi Dan! I was wondering maybe you would like to listen to the absolute best album of 2024, that being the Imaginal Disk from a duo called Magdalena Bay! It's everything that pop aspires to be, it's heartfelt, it's extremely well produced, it's outstandingly beautiful and I think there's a fair chance you'll really like it! I wish you all the best in the new year Dan, cheers!

I really like a lot of this album. If you want to get a sense of Cope, the usual mentions are for 'Jehovakill' and 'Peggy Suicide', and stuff like 'Autogeddon' and '20 Mothers' are accessible enough without losing the sometimes unhinged Copey-ness of it. He can be quite funny at times. He had a spell after 'Fried' (but before the aforementioned albums) where he found chart success with the radio-friendly "St Julian" and "My Nation Underground" albums, and they're certainly very accessible but perhaps not quite as psychedelic (or just obtuse and envelope-pushing) as his later stuff. It was interesting to hear what a non-fan made of it - and I think your descriptions are pretty fair. Subscribed, and I need to find the time to back-track through your list now...!

I think their next album (Tribute to the Martyrs) was more artistically interesting and recorded with better settings and effects. Then they put out a more mediocre album in 1980 (Caught You) before turning in their masterpiece of all time, True Democracy. That’s one of the 10 best reggae albums ever and i would even say it’s among the best 50 albums of any music genre.

Oh I LOVE this album!! Cope is one of the great lost treasures of the 80's. I'm a major fan. Although, I am at odds with a lot of internet fandom - I prefer Saint Julian, which is often derided as too commercial. I picked this up at a second-hand record market back in October and I felt like running around the place holding it over my head like it was the FA Cup. I'm gonna go and try and find it and play it right now! Krautrocksampler is brillant!

That album was actually recorded with Miles' Davis band at the time - 'Trane, Philly Joe, Red and Paul Chambers. So it was 5 working junkies in a room. Miles and Sonny did NOT get on. Of course, the list of people Miles did not get along with could fill a book. Bonus fact: Sonny Rollins was the basis for the Simpson's character Bleeding Gums Murphy. As for the music, I can feel you on this. Sonny can drift into the "pleasant not challenging" category a bit. So much so that I used him for background music at my wedding reception.

One of my favorite albums! I liked your review. I can see why the chaos throws people off. In a way this albums always seems to be in a state of either tension bubbling up, or the spazzy outburst that follows all that cranked up tension

Lenny was next step from God for the kids in the suburbs when he made Let Love Rule.

I notice the list ends with Nicole Kidman. She would be enough to put any man off for a good long time. I'm surprised that the record companies wouldn't snap Lenny up straight away - given the obvious Prince without all the BS angle.

Great album. Nightwish is a genre in itself; their base is metal, but they add all kind of elements: pop, folk, rock, classical, operatic, electronic... The outcome is huge and the lyrics are always interesting and suggestive. One of their best albums and that is a lot.

Great review! Beck is one of, if not my favorite “solo artists”!

Excellent review! 👏🏽

Young thug is a genius! Have you seen him do his ad-libs to blend everything together