Young Man With A Horn (+DVD) - Harry James & Doris Day

Advantages: One of the greatest soul albums of all time
Disadvantages: ---

...waste beautiful vocals under mannered pre planned phrasing and prepackaged formula. Here, she just lets loose but still keeping strong vocal form; sounding more like a looser Ivy Anderson( A singer in Duke Ellingon's band in the 40's ) instead of a stiff Doris Day knock off. With her breathy vocal style and picture perfect tone on <i>" Serenade" </i> she gives a wonderfully nuanced style homage to Dinah Washington . ( She also did a tribute album of her material in 64) . Capturing the song's demure but breezy subtleties, around an elegant background of a jazz band augmented with lush R&B horns, <i>" Dream"</i> is the best non-Bachrach-Bachrach ever done or record. Aretha filters in luxurious gospel shouts into the song's schmaltz. The music, cocktail jazz arrangements blended in a pop-soul background, captures Burt's weird camp appeal... 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 by... Read review

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Advantages: Wonderful, classic Bowie album
Disadvantages: Song for Bob Dylan

...relationships, got married and fathered a child. He'd run an arts laboratory; been a painter, a mod, a hippie, a singer-songwriter, a mime artist and an inchoate Buddhist monk. He'd made TV commercials and been groomed by his manager as a musical comedy performer as well as making his first film appearance. His third album, The Man Who sold the World, was released early in 1971 and by the time the fourth, Hunky Dory, was released later that year he had all but completed his fifth. Hunky Dory came about, then, in the midst of a period of intense activity and creativity on Bowie's part. It was the first album to bring him serious critical acclaim and the last he would record as a relatively unknown performer, for his next project was to be The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, the album that would set him up for stardom... Read review

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