Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1019 in the Series) is Tears for Fears, The Seeds of Love. I Would love to know how much time Tears for Fears spent in the studio recording this album.  It has so much texture and so many layers that it had to have taken many, many months. Released in 1989, this was their third release following The Hurting and Songs from the Big Chair. The latter having reached #1 on the strength of two singles, “Shout” and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” The Seeds of Love peaked at #8 but top to bottom, this this was a stronger album in my opinion. There was a major difference in this album that...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#990 in the Series) is Boo Hewerdine and Darden Smith, Evidence It was 65 degrees here in Chicago a couple of short days ago. Within 10 hours it was down to 32. Yes, it was freezing.  I tell you that weather tale as I lead into a piece on this great album by Boo Hewerdine and Darden Smith titled Evidence.  Why you might have asked? I mention that because I’ve always had certain albums that I associate with the different seasons or even sometime more specifically a certain time of that season. I could never listen to Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe in the dead of summer because no one “trudges across the tundra” in...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#925 in the Series) is Pixies, Doolittle. Pixies first came to most people’s attention via 1988’s superb “Surfer Rosa,” a raw blast of punky mayhem with a real sense of fun and pop at its core. Produced (or as he likes to say, recorded) by Steve Albini, it garnered the band a whole host of new fans and critical acclaim, setting the band up for greater heights in the process. The question was, could they keep the quality quota as high on the next one and deliver on the promise they’d shown? Easily! The following year’s “Doolittle” was overseen by Gil Norton, who gave their sound a more polished sheen but managed to...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#916 in the Series) is the self-titled debut from The Stone Roses. (Silvertone) With the recent news of The Stone Roses reuniting and touring, I thought back to my freshman year of college at Arizona State University twenty plus years ago, where I was first introduced to their self-titled debut. This was a great time in my life musically, considering I was away at college and free to spend as much time as I wanted scouring the record bins at Tower Records or listening to live music at Long Wong’s, the venue that launched The Gin Blossoms. Additionally, that fall both Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten were released. Not to mention my...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Follow Your Bliss” by The B-52’s “Follow Your Bliss” is perhaps the most unique recording in the entire B-52’s catalog, it is also the perfect closer to their greatest album. By the time of The B-52’s comeback album Cosmic Thing the group was ten years into their career. After becoming media darlings for the new wave, they soon found themselves in a dramatic free fall that left them practically unable to give their records away at retail. Formed in Athens, Georgia in 1976, The B-52’s consisted of Fred Schneider on vocals, percussion and keyboards, Kate Pierson on organ, bass and vocals, Cindy Wilson on vocals, tambourine and guitar, Cindy’s brother Ricky...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#753 in the Series) is Bonnie Raitt, Nick of Time. In 1988, Bonnie Raitt was one of many performers that would continuously pound out good release after good release but never really popped!  We’ve seen a ton of these acts. “Wow is she good. I’m surprised that she’s not better known.”  There was the odd “Me and the Boys” or “Angel From Montgomery,” but the lady from California still wasn’t a household name.  Heck she might not have been as well-known as her stage star father John Raitt. Don’t get me wrong. She did have a nice following, she just wasn’t a star. Then she met Don Was.  Don was a producer...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#713 in the Series) is Neal Schon, Late Night I decided to feature this album today because I’ve always been a huge fan of Neal Schon’s guitar playing. He’s always been my favorite soloist. I always felt that so many of the so called “guitar gods” never played with the emotion that this man does. We first saw him as a child prodigy with Santana at about age 16.  He was the first “second guitarist” that Carlos ever had in his band.  He’d play with them for a few years or so before forming Journey about 1973. We’ve featured the first two Journey albums here on Cool Album of the Day in...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#688 in the Series) is The Neville Brothers, Yellow Moon. Yellow Moon was the sixth album and fifth studio album by the New Orleans based Neville Brothers. The Neville Brothers were indeed four brothers, Aaron, Art, Charles and Cyril. It was released in 1989 and peaked at #66 on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart. The song “Healing Chant” won the band a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. The title cut, “Yellow Moon” received the most airplay. The band did some interesting covers on this album.  They included songs by Bob Dylan “With God on Our Side” and “The Ballad of Hollis Brown,” Link Wray “Fire and Brimstone” and Sam Cooke...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#589 in the Series) is Michael Penn, March. This was a real pleasant surprise for me.  I knew that actors Sean and Chris Penn had a musician brother, but that was the extent of it. It was 1989 when an RCA rep walked into my office and tossed a cassette of this album on my desk. I was told to ‘check it out. ‘I listened to it a little at the office and then played it more than once while stuck in traffic on 294 between Elk Grove Village and Oak Lawn. Did I like it, well….Yeah! In fact, before I got home, I stopped at good ol’ Wind Records on 95th street...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#588in the Series) is The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Volume II. Will The Circle Be Unbroken Vol II is, obviously, the follow up to the 1971 album. If you’re not familiar with the two, they were a pair of albums released by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band that featured a roomful of guest stars. The original album gave us names like Roy Acuff, Merle Travis, Vassar Clements etc. Volume II continued the tradition. Some wonderful names are on this release. Here we find, Johnny Cash, Sam Bush, Bruce Hornsby, EmmyLou Harris, Levon Helm, John Denver (Before he made a big splash), John Hiatt, John Prine, Rosanne Cash, Randy Scruggs, Roger...