Tag: hard rock

scorpions - fly to the rainbow
CD

Scorpions: Fly to the Rainbow (1974)

Back from a week of vacation where weirdly enough I spent most of my time listening to a lot of metal. Usually it’s a ton of funk and more sunny music to complement the beach weather, but there you go. Anyway, right before I left picked up Fly to the Rainbow, the second album from Scorpions: I’m familiar with what I would call the “classic” period from Lovedrive to Love at First Sting, but beyond some excursions into the late 70s my early knowledge is severely limited. I know the real early stuff is supposed to be significantly different, so as an experiment I’m going to review this real-time as I listen to it for the first time. I guess it’s a reaction post – is that a thing? I don’t know. Let’s dive in.

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savoy brown - looking in
Vinyl

Savoy Brown: Looking In (1970)

Like so many metal albums of my youth, it started with the album cover. I would see Looking In, the sixth album from England blues rock band Savoy Brown constantly on my trips to the local record shops, and would marvel at that delicious comic book artwork. But each and every time I’d turn way, convinced it was just another run of the mill 70s rock and roll record that could be ignored. But as I started digging more into some of the obscure gems of the 70s I decided to stop ignoring that cover and give it a shot.

Man, I love being wrong.

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CD

Detective: Detective (1977)

Kicking off my dive into 1970s hard rock with this recommendation from Sea of Tranquility. I grabbed Detective on CD without hearing anything besides the description: a band that impressed Jimmy Page so much he immediately signed them to his Swan Song label. The band’s eponymous debut is a killer rock album that certainly hews close to late-period Zeppelin were putting out but contains some surprising detours along the way, making it a real catchy hard rock gem with enough of its own identity to (for the most part) keep the clone hounds at bay. In other words, here there be hooks, and they will most assuredly get into you.

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consuming 70s rock
Miscellany

Consuming the 70s: Heavy and (Not) Forgotten

Although it certainly didn’t start there, I have Pete Pardo and the Sea of Tranquility YouTube channel to thank for my latest musical excavation. Looking back over this site’s history it’s no secret I love the music of the 70s in all its facets. But hard rock, metal, and prog have always been my bread and butter, and my listening habits have recently been all but taken over by the sinister siren of Moog synthesizers and Fender Rhodes, of the primitive lock of bass and drums matched against Marshall amps stacked to the heavens, reverberating with the root of a thousand riffs chained within, that pentatonic box which birthed a thousand bands…a million songs. From the obscenely popular to the ominously obscured, I’ve been digging deep into the woodwork of 70s rock, and it’s all that damn Pardo’s fault.

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ozzy - diary of a madman
Vinyl

Ozzy Osbourne: Diary of a Madman (1981)

It’s Dealer’s Choice for Day 15 of the #mayvinylchallenge, so I clicked “Random” on my Discogs collection and lo and behold: the second solo album from Ozzy Osbourne. It’s easy to understand how Diary of a Madman gets lost in the shuffle of early Ozzy when just a few months earlier Blizzard of Ozz hit us with massive classics like “Crazy Train,” “I Don’t Know,” “Goodbye to Romance” and the stellar “Suicide Solution.” What I find fascinating about Dairy though is how in a few short months to tone already began to change: the songs are darker, heavier, and less commerce minded. Overall it makes for a sinister and great listen.

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Miscellany, Vinyl

AC/DC, Alcest, and Music That Hurts

It’s probably not a shocking revelation that as I’ve been doing this project I’ve also been buying music.  Since it’s still in its infancy, the chances of picking up an album that would have already been reviewed is small.  But it does and did happen, so I wanted to take the time to spend a few words on two recent purchases: Highway to Hell from AC/DC and the debut full-length from Alcest, Souvenirs d’un autre monde.  Over the short course of writing this, it turned into something else. Continue reading “AC/DC, Alcest, and Music That Hurts”

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