Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1043 in the Series) is Billy Joel, 52nd Street While 52nd Street is not Billy Joel’s most popular album, that honor goes to The Stranger with the mega-hits “Just the Way You Are”, “Scenes in an Italian Restaurant”, “Only the Good Die Young”, and the rest, or his most socially aware album, that would certainly be The Nylon Curtain with the brutally honest social commentary of “Allentown”, and “Goodbye Saigon”, and it was by far not the worst, clearly An Innocent Man gets that dubious honor, but it is in some circles, including mine, simply the best. In the interests of full disclosure, my view of this album may be somewhat influenced...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1025 in the Series) is Charlie, Lines. Readers of an “Cool Album of the Day” should see a pattern especially lately. What they would notice is that there is a strong tendency to feature albums of what’s commonly known now as the “Americana” genre. This is been my favorite music to listen to for a number of years now. But another genre that I’ve long enjoyed was the sound of the slick jazz rock bands often known as the ”L.A. Sound.”  Some great music has been produced by that well-known group of musicians from Los Angeles. I’m sure you know what I’m referring to, Toto, later period Doobie Brothers, Les Dudek, Boz Scaggs, etc....

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1003 in the Series) is Todd Rundgren, The Hermit of Mink Hollow. If I ever opened a pub, I always had in mind to call it the Mink Hollow. And there alongside music and sports memorabilia would be some kind of musical device that would be able to play Todd Rundgren and Utopia songs. Especially from this particular masterpiece.  Kind of in the same way it is hard to name a favorite Beatles song or album, it can be of equal challenge for me to name my favorite Todd work. But really this has always been my personal favorite, maybe because it was released just before I turned 16 and was in the...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#998 in the series) Chic, C’est Chic (Atlantic) I have a feeling that this post might take a few people by surprise. What’s he doing here, isn’t this disco? Well, yeah, Chic indeed did have some disco hits, some huge disco hits. Who can forgot “Good Times” or “Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah? Or from this album, “Le Freak?” The reason I bring a Chic album to this party is for one reason, talent. Not long ago I mentioned that Fleetwood Mac had a great rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.  I do think that was one of the best for pop and of course for blues as well. However, if you want...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#984 in the Series) Big Star, Third/Sister Lovers This one goes down as one of the great enigma’s of rock music, an album by a band which had pretty much split up by the time it was recorded, which had no title and which didn’t even have a finalized track listing. For years it was, just like The Beach Boys “SMiLE”, more of a rumour, a myth, than an actual record. Thankfully it was eventually released, in an albeit limited capacity, and fans were finally able to hear what all the fuss was about. Was it worth it? Hell yeah. Big time. Big Star were founded in Memphis by  three friends who were deeply...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#943 in the Series) is Angel City, Face to Face. When locating the epicenters of rock and roll, music fans instinctively fixate on New York, California, London, and (maybe) Manchester, England. Very few look down under to Australia. How could people overlook the home of AC/DC, Midnight Oil, The Saints, Triffids, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Hoodoo Gurus, The Church, and Birthday Party? For a nation of less that 23 million people, this is quite an impressive output of quality bands. For me, though, Angel City, also known as the Angels, ranks with any band from any place. Formed in 1974 in Adelaide, Angel City is a no frills kick you in...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#913 in the Series) is the self-titled debut from Nina Hagen Band. There’s a great scene in Paul Rachman’s terrific documentary “American Hardcore” that discusses the differences between early punk and early hardcore.  While I don’t remember the specific verbiage, the gist of the thing is that early punks came up playing glam rock and turned to punk later in life, whereas early hardcore kids heard punk rock and picked up instruments; while they couldn’t play worth a damn, the primal energy of punk rock was a universal.  This attitude seems to be widely held, and time hasn’t been kind to “punks that could play”: the classic image of punk rock is fast,...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#898 in the Series) is Tuff Darts, Tuff Darts!  In the spring of 1979, I was a freshman in high school in a little Appalachian town in Western Maryland and a few of my older friends in the Media Department at the local community college were putting on a Saturday Night Live type show titled “Media Madness.” Just like SNL, they did live sketches interspersed with prerecorded pieces that you could see on TV monitors around the auditorium.  It was a very funny and well done show and one of the videos was by a guy I did not know and never really met but I remember his name was Dave Thomas because...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “No Lullaby” by Jethro Tull By 1978, Jethro Tull had been an entity for ten years and they were at the brink of irrelevancy due to the onslaught of punk rock. One would have thought that a veteran band like Tull would have either thrown in the towel, or tried its best to keep up with the times (and they did a few years later on the album A). But ever the contrarian, Ian Anderson and company dug their collective heels in and returned to the English countryside for musical and lyrical inspiration, making a somewhat ornate British folk album that made them completely out of step with the musical climate....

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Whole Wide World” by Wreckless Eric “If it ain’t Stiff, it ain’t worth a f*ck.” “The world’s most flexible record label.” “Undertakers to the industry.” “We came. We Saw. We Left.” “In ’78 everyone born in ’45 will be 33-1/3.” “When you kill time, you murder success.” “If they’re dead, we’ll sign them.” The above non-sequitors were all slogans for one of the coolest record labels to be associated with the late 1970s punk rock movement. Stiff Records established itself by not only having a roster that included Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, The Damned, Wreckless Eric and Ian Dury, but by the hyperactive media antics they pulled off in the name...