Woody Herman 1963 (The Swingin'est Big Band Ever/Woody's 25th Year...His Greatest) - Woody Herman

Advantages: Brilliant and Original Compositions
Disadvantages: A Bit Rough around the Edges For Modern Tastes

...Guthrie. Guthrie was born into tragedy and his sister died early on, when the family home burned down (Woody’s daughter later died under similar circumstances). His parents business was to fail shortly after the house fire. No sooner had the young Guthrie picked himself up and started a band than his mother developed Huntingdon’s Chorea and was confined to an asylum in a semi-vegetative state. Woody married and headed for Texas about the time the Great Depression hit the US. He had already started another band when, in the mid-30s, the depression was compounded by the Great Dust Storms that blew into the mid-west. Millions of acres of prime top-soil were blown away in just a few years, mainly as a result of bad farm management. History records that tens of thousands of bankrupt farmers and cowboys left Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kansas... Read review

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Advantages: It's Bowie
Disadvantages: None come to mind

...The year 1971 was a very productive one for David Bowie he had just signed to a major label RCA and now he had an American lawyer called Tony Defries as his manager who with his "Mainman" company was building up public expectations for Bowie to be the next big thing. He had written a huge amount of material than would later feature on the "Hunky Dory" album and "Ziggy Stardust" album, which for many fans of Bowie's remain essential purchases and are seen by many as his biggest contribution to the world of music. Bowie had in place the musicians that would become "The Spiders from Mars", with the drummer Mick "Woody Woodmansey who along with Mick Ronson where retained from the previous "The man who sold the World" sessions, Tony Visconti had been replaced on bass guitar by Trevor Bolder and Visconti's production duties where now... Read review

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Advantages: The Clash
Disadvantages: Shut Up It is The Clash

...Well what can I say about this album other than it is one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever made, and it is also vastly overrated. Overrated in that far too many people rant on about how great it is without ever really listening to it. This is the 25th anniversary edition, which features the original album, a second CD of demos recorded at Vanilla Studios in Pimlico and a DVD with a documentary directed by Don Letts, rare footage of the band recording the album in Wessex studios with Guy Stevens and 3 promos. The packaging is awesome, with a big triple fold out digi-pack thing and all the original artwork, there are also extra photos which I have in a book somewhere but it still great to have more. You have a reproduction of the lyric sheet, and an additional booklet with lots of information about the recording of the album... Read review

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