Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#915 in the Series) is Terence Trent D’Arby, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby. Terence Trent D’Arby arrived on the scene in 1987 and found immediate success.  This album, his debut, peaked at #4, TWICE! His second single “Wishing Well” reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart.  He won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. Then…. Not much. He would never see success like that again. That first album though is definitely worth looking back upon.  The first single was my favorite on that disc. That was the hard funk of “If You Let Me Stay.”  I don’t think anything on the album came close to that...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#887 in the Series) is The Waterboys, Fisherman’s Box: The Complete Fisherman’s Blues Sessions 1986-1988 This may be one of the more interesting box sets of the year – a year that has already seen many. They have been some really great ones and some that I have to shake my head and wonder if there was really a need for that. They have come in all shapes and l sizes. There have been career spanning Boxes by Stephen Stills and Duane Allman, Re-releases of several artists entire discographies and a number of deluxe sets expanding albums of long ago such as Nirvana’s 20th anniversary release of In Utero, Van Morrison’s Deluxe...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Sheila Take A Bow” by The Smiths The Who called them “odds and sods.” These were the songs that didn’t fit on their proper albums. Typically, they were non-album singles, B-sides and stray tracks recorded for outside compilations, movie soundtracks and other projects that either didn’t fit, or were never considered for, inclusion on their proper albums. They were also songs that may not have been released all over the world, but were only released, for whatever reason in specific regions. The “odds and sods” compilation album made for an easy stop-gap project between new albums, creating more revenue for the artist and new product for the labels to market. At...

Today’s Cool Album of The Day (#783 in the Series) is The Silencers, A Letter From St. Paul I’m curious as to how many of you are familiar with The Silencers. A show of hands please..one, two , three, four… oh, I see a few more in the back, not bad!  Plus I know a few of our friends from Scotland know of them!  That’s where they call home. This one is a little more obscure here in the States. This album was released in 1987. “Painted Moon” actually did get some play.  To me though, the title cut, “A Letter From St. Paul” was the song not to miss. You can hear most of this one below. If...

This was their debut album. I actually started this write up planning to do their second release, Faster and Llouder, but I couldn’t find many videos for that album. I really wanted you to be able to check out some of the album. I was able to find some for the first album so I made the switch. One of the things I’ve always liked about Foster and Lloyd was the little taste of The Everly Brothers that they’ve thrown in.  Make sure you listen to ‘What Do You Want From Me This Time.’ You’ll hear some heavy Everly Brothers influence in that track! ‘Crazy Over You’ did well for the band as well.  As did ‘Sure Thing’ and...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#682 in the Series) is NRBQ, God Bless Us All I have always felt that God Bless Us All was NRBQ at their absolute peak. In fact, if someone wanted to know an album to start their Q catalog, this was the one I’d always suggest. This was the one that I’d always play at parties and would always get the the Q fans  boppin’.  If you weren’t a Q fan when I put this one on, well you would be soon. “Who’s this?” was a question that was asked more than once when I’d put needle to vinyl. Not only did it catch the band at their peak, but it also...

Today’s Cool Album of The Day (#606 in the Series) is Suzanne Vega, Solitude Standing. Solitude Standing was singer – songwriter Suzanne Vega’s second release.  It contained the hit song, “Luka.” I always thought that it was a song about spousal abuse. As I did my research on the album, I actually found out that it’s about child abuse. These are Suzanne’s own words… “          A few years ago, I used to see this group of children playing in front of my building, and there      was one of them, whose name was Luka, who seemed a little bit distinctive from the other children. I always remembered his name, and I always remembered his face, and I didn’t know much...

  2012 marks the 25th anniversay of Peter Gabriel’s classic So album.  That’s the one that introduced us to songs like “Red Rain,” “Sledgehammer,” ” In Your Eyes,” ” Big Time,” and the Kate Bush duet “Don’t Give Up.” The Gabriel camp has announced that they will be releasing a 25th anniversary package and they’d like your help on it. Here’s what they’re looking for: “We would love to see your memorabilia from back in 1986. Do you have any original So merchandise, posters and tickets for the So tour? Your photos relating to the album release or the concerts? Even a diary entry from 25 years ago which tells a special story about the album release or So...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#514 in the Series, and #32 in the Whale Wednesday Series) is INXS, Kick. I always thought that INXS were just a little bit different from any other rock band that I knew of, they always had this little bit of “funk” in their music that was oddly identifiable to only them.  That I think is a real cool thing.  I love uniqueness. These guys had it in gobs. INXS followed that familiar path to stardom.  Great early releases, build a base, get a little bit more mainstream without losing you identification, let the base get a little bigger, have a big album, then have a huge follow-up. It’s that easy boys and...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#346 in the Series) is The Screaming Blue Messiahs, Bikini Red Now, this is one of those titles that you might not be familiar.  Well, except for “I Wanna be a Flintstone.” That song did bring the band some notoriety. I’m hoping you check out the playlist below. The Screaming Blue Messiahs were a darn good band!!  One that I’d have a real hard time trying to fit into a category. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I like them. One description of read of the band was “Rampaging Rockabilly.” Maybe?  “I’ve read “Rockabilly from Hell” as well.  Don’t let the title “Rock a billy” define them however.  They had more pub rock...