Rock & Pop > Remastered Rock & Pop > Singer/Songwriter

Old Owl Eyes Is Back

Advantages: Some Essential Reed Songs
Disadvantages: A lot of filler

This was Lou Reed's second solo album, post Velvet Underground, produced under the aegis of his mentor and RCA label mate of the time David Bowie. The album is heavily influenced by "Ziggy" era Bowie, which ironic considering that Bowie was heavily influenced by the work of Reed with the Velvet Underground. Reed influencing Bowie influencing Reed. The album is none the worse for Ziggy's influence. The cover is interesting featuring a scary stark ...
...and models representing Reed's male / female personae on the back. There are some fine songs here, opening with the excellent "Vicious" which could have graced a VU album, this is floowed by "Andy's Chest" about Mr Warhol. Next up we have "Perfect Day" which was also the "B" side of the stand out song here "Walk On The Wildside" with that loping distictive Herbie Flowers bass riff (for which he was reputedly paid a tenner session players fee). The ...

mikeydred 17.03.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Transformer [Remastered] - Lou Reed

American try.

Advantages: Vincent & American Pie.
Disadvantages: Lots of naff tracks.

American Pie - Don McClean This album was originally released in 1971, this is the 1988 CD version, or at least the CD of the 1988 version (says 1988 on CD sleeve, though I do not remember CD's in 1988! Or maybe I just did not have any then, lol). According to various sources this album is amongst the 'best ever' American albums, really? McClean was/is primarily a folk singer and this album, by all accounts was a 'one off', he certainly has little ...
...tracks. ~~The Tracks~~ 1. American Pie The title and opening track. Though this needs little explaining, as there surely cannot be many people that have never heard this, I will give you my interpretation. Released at the height of the psychedelic time in America, summer of love, tune in, drop out etc. this feels almost like a mourning of the innocence of America, it certainly remains, for me a ballad like list of all the is 'good' about America. ...

paulhanton 05.10.2008 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of American Pie (Greatest Hits) - Don McLean

Robbo 2000: "It's cool to like Billy Joel"

Advantages: Very good songs
Disadvantages: Not as strangely attractive as Supernanny

If you read the music press these days, you would be forgiven for believing that tofu-eating popsters Coldplay invented the piano. They did not: the piano has been around since olden times, and was actually invented by Jesus, probably. Or someone called John Piano. But I digress - the piano was a common tool of the trade for many of the wealth of singer-songwriters who cropped up in the seventies, of which Billy Joel was one. Famous mainly for 1983's ...
...unfortunate position of being thought a bit crap by a good many people. But those people are just silly, and I'm going to tell you why. A BIT ABOUT BILLY The son of classically trained musicians, Billy had piano lessons forced upon him from the age of 4. He may not have liked this at the time, but when he grew up to be a short, ugly man with rubbish frizzy hair, he realised that his ability to play "Chopsticks" really quickly may represent his ...

robbo2000 12.03.2006 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Stranger, The [ECD] [Remastered] - Billy Joel

This is no crime against music

Advantages: Classic album, easily available
Disadvantages: Only 10 songs on cassette version

Billy Joel's "An Innocent Man" was released in 1983 and we borrowed a copy. I was only 7 at the time. I eventually bought the album on cassette for myself in 1989 for the tremendous price of £3.99. Thank you, Woolworths! The album has 10 tracks on which is quite short but it was typical of an album at that time. The range of styles is quite mixed, despite Billy writing all the words and music. Very few artistes can manage that! All of the songs ...
...Track Two is "An Innocent Man". This is a quiet, jazzy pop song with an intro that almost steals in. The song is about a relationship break-up as well as a look at relationships in general. Billy yowls in the chorus that he is an innocent man in this break-up and we hear his full range of vocals. This is the sort of song best heard late at night. It's a tear-jerker and I love those little tinkly bells in the percussion. Track Three is "The Longest ...

Mel27 17.09.2004 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Innocent Man, An [Remastered] - Billy Joel

Screaming Down from Heaven

Advantages: Powerful song structure and the voice of an angel.
Disadvantages: Eventually, it comes to an end.

It was the song 'Hallelujah' (a cover of a Leonard Cohen song / poem) that originally got me into Jeff Buckley. Since then, I have musically fallen in love with all of Jeff's music. 'Grace' was the only studio album brought out by Jeff himself, who was the only son of cult folk singer / songwriter Tim Buckley. Jeff was determined not to be simply a sum of all of his creative influences (including The Smiths, Led Zeppelin, and Nina Simone), but wanted ...
...is present on 'Grace'. From the moving 'Mojo Pin' to the emotion of 'Lilac Wine', and from the heartfelt sigh at the beginning of 'Hallelujah' to the philosophical questions of 'Eternal Life', the album is perfect. Ten years and one day after the release of the original 'Grace', the re-mastered 10th anniversary edition was released, with better sound quality than the original, a second disk of various un-released studio songs (including the much ...

Stu-Smith 10.12.2006 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Grace (10th Anniversary Legacy Edition/Remastered/+DVD) [Digipak] - Jeff Buckley