Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#236 in the Series) is Genesis, Duke. I’ve always loved the Duke album. Not every track is great like most of the early works, but from start to finish, Duke was a darn strong Genesis effort. It should be listed to in its entirety.  The songs play together as a story. It opens with the great ‘Behind The Lines’ and segues thru ‘Duchess’ and ‘Guide Vocal. Man of our Times’ is another great song. Side two opens with another great side opener, ‘Turn it on Again.’  It ends with the reprise tinged ‘Duke’s Travels’ and ‘Duke’s End.’ If you’ll notice I’ve deliberately left out mentioning one song. It also was left off the video montage...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#233 in the Series) is The Replacements, Pleased to Meet Me. How could we even incorporate the word ‘Cool’ into this website and not have an entry by The Replacements?  We’ve now solved that problem. Pleased to Meet Me, 1987,  is the fifth release from the Minneapolis produced quartet. It was produced by the late Jim Dickenson.  It peaked at #131 on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart.  The album cover was intended to look, color-wise, similar to Elvis Presley’s G.I. Blues. The best known songs on the disc were ‘Alex Chilton’ and the final track which included Alex Chilton on guitar, ‘Can’t Hardly Wait.’ Back To Cool Album of the Day HOMEPAGE...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#215 in the Series) is the self-titled release from Christine McVie. Christine McVie was released in 1984.  It was her first album since her Christine Perfect album, which  was released in 1970. I always loved her contributions to Fleetwood Mac. I’d have no interest in seeing them now and watching Stevie Nicks sing Christine’s songs. I know Stevie has a ton of fans, but give me Ms. McVie anytime. This album contained two hits.  ‘Got Ahold on Me’ and ‘Love Will Show us How.’ Got a Hold on Me’ peaked at #10 while ‘Love Will Show us How’ reached #30. You can listen to both songs below. The Christine McVie album peaked at...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#210 in the Series) is New Order, Power, Corruption and Lies. New Order was one of the more interesting acts to come out the 80s. They were often lumped into the synth acts that were quite popular in that era.  New Order was more than that however as they did bring in a nice mix of guitar and drums in their music.  Sure some of it was programmed but a large portion was not. They had one of the most well-known dance hits a few months earlier with ‘Blue Monday.’ It was one of the defining songs of early club tunes. It remains popular to this day.  That was originally released as a...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#207 in the Series) is Pete Townshend, White City: A Novel White City was one of my favorite Pete Townsend projects.  It told the story of about a low income area near West London of White City. It lets us see into all the expected trappings that one would find there. Prostitution, drugs, racial issues etc. David Gilmour added some wonderful guitar work to the track he co-wrote with Pete. It’s called ‘White City Fighting.’ There was a 60 minute companion movie released that stared Townsend.  There was also a fantastic concert video released for the tour.  There were two versions. A shorter, 60 minute version that was hit slanted and another 90...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#201 in the Series) in The Pretenders, Get Close. Get Close was The Pretenders fourth album. It was released in 1986.  It was the first album with the new rhythm section of Blair Cunningham on drums and T.M. Stevens on bass.  Robbie McIntosh and, of course, Chrissie Hynde were on guitar.  Original drummer Martin Chambers did play a few tracks on the album and would return to the band a few years later. It yielded a couple well known hits as well, “Don’t Get Me Wrong” and “My Baby.” “Don’t Get Me Wrong” featured a great video that featured a takeoff on the 60s British spy-drama The Avengers. The redo of a Jimi...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#200 in the Series) self-titled solo debut from Robbie Robertson. This one is a ‘special’ album. I recently listen to this great work in its entirety for the first time in many moons. It was as moving as it was the first time I heard it. It is an absolute gem. “Fallen Angel” was Robbie (co-written by Martin Page)‘s tribute to Richard Manuel. Richard was Robbie’s longtime band-mate.  It features some great support vocals by Peter Gabriel. I’ve included the full list of participating musicians.  It’s quite lengthy. Special mentions include U2, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko, Terry Bozzio and Ivan Neville. It took Robbie 11 years to release his first solo effort. When...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#188 in the Series) is The Cure, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Kiss Me 3, is a 1987 release by the highly popular, and rightly so, English rock band, The Cure. It was their seventh studio release and was a double album. It contained a number of hit songs. “Just Like Heaven,” the third single released off the album reached #40 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. It was the first Top 40’hit for the band. “Why Can’t I Be You” was the first single and reached #54 on the singles chart. “Catch” was the second single and did not chart. “Just Like Heaven’s” success was followed up by single #4....

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#186 in the Series) is The Style Council, My Ever Changing Moods. The Style Council was a 1980’s band made up of guitarist Paul Weller and keyboard player Mick Talbot. Weller was previously a member of The Jam while Talbot was in various bands including Dexy’s Midnight Runners.   They released six albums in the decade. My Ever Changing Moods was probably their most successful in the US. The album was known as Café Blue world-wide but not here.  Record label Polydor was trying to capitalize on the success of the single with the same name.  Plus we have a thing against the French.  Ok, maybe that had nothing to do with it! The...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#182 in the Series) is Steve Earle, Guitar Town. His first and still my favorite. I saw him at the Park West shortly after his second album; Exit 0 was released. But I always liked this one. The Chicago market was onto Steve Earle pretty early thanks to WXRT.  They played this album from day one, If not earlier.  What’s a great thing about Steve Earle too is that he’s never forgotten that. He’s repaid the favor to them many times over.   They were not the only help he had here.  Steve Dahl was onto him early as well. “Guitar Town,” plus “My Old Friend the Blues” and “Someday” were some of the...