Friend

I see him each day
On the path to Foxfield woods
And give him a scritch

Crosby, Stills & Nash by Crosby, Stills & Nash

Late in 1968 David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash all found themselves at a collective loose end, having either left or been fired from their respective bands. They teamed up to form an eponymous supergroup, recording this album just before playing at the Woodstock festival. Aside from the jolly Marrakesh Express about the joys of the hippie lifestyle, this album feels oddly melancholy, with songs about doomed relationships and a sense of a golden age coming to an end. 

The trio posed for the cover photo in front of a derelict house before agreeing on the band name and went back a few days later to retake the picture in the right order, only to find that the house had been demolished. That’s a perfect metaphor for the end of the sixties and this album as a whole.

https://album.link/gb/i/908303090

Thaw

A handful of ice
Gin, tonic, a slice of lime
Ice slowly thawing

The Real Thing by Faith No More

This album starts promisingly enough with what sounds like a solid bit of late 80’s metal, but then we come to the second track. Oh boy. White people rapping is something that rarely ends well and shoehorning it into a metal track just makes it more toe-curlingly embarrassing. The previous lead singer Chuck Mosley just about got away with it, but new boy for this album Mike Patton is a fish out of water (literally, in the notorious shot of a fish flopping around in the video that went with this song). Almost unbelievably, it gets worse when he tries to be faux emotional with the track Zombie Eaters. No, just no. 

The album very nearly redeems itself with a surprisingly faithful cover of the classic War Pigs by Black Sabbath, but the overall impression is of something that has dated very badly.

https://album.link/gb/i/83386606

Sunrise

Waiting for the sun
Fire glows on the horizon
Another day dawns

Blood and Chocolate by Elvis Costello & The Attractions

This is probably one of my least listened albums from Elvis Costello and I’m not sure why because it’s really rather good. This is very much a back to basics album after the experiments with Americana on the previous album. 

The opening track sets out a theme - this is literally uncomplicated rock, focussing on a raw sound and straightforward lyrics. Tokyo Storm Warning channels Bob Dylan circa 1965 with vivid scenes on each verse and similarly I Want You channels the Beatles She’s So Heavy with a repeated lyric that builds a claustrophobic atmosphere of an obsessive relationship. 

https://album.link/gb/i/1443093435

Egg

Twelve freshly laid eggs
Nestled together, waiting for an
Unwary victim

good kid, m.A.A.d city by Kendrick Lamar

For a small suburb of Los Angeles, Compton has produced a disproportionately large amount of Gangsta Rap albums. Ok, I get it, it’s one of the most deprived areas of the USA, and I can’t imagine how tough it must have been to grow up there as a young black man, but I really think I’ve listened to enough albums like this now. This one is probably one of the better ones, unusually featuring a Christian conversion prayer alongside the usual m— f—in n— words, but enough already.

https://album.link/gb/i/1471264092

Flurry

I always enjoy
Matching words with the awesome
Alice McFlurry

Geese

It is foolhardy
To eat your picnic near the
Geese of Cannon Hall

Snow

Dropping from orbit
Punching through the cloud layer
Landing in the snow

London Calling by The Clash

The Clash were never really just a punk band. Aside from the opening track which anticipates the nuclear paranoia of the 80s with a howl of despair, the music here is diverse and literate, covering jazz, ska, dub, Americana (with a nod to Staggers Lee) and good old rock ‘n’ roll. Even that iconic cover pays homage to Elvis Presley’s debut album, and rightly so. This is a band paying their dues and saying things that need to be said, as well as having a lot of fun with bouncy songs about the drudgery of shopping alongside political bangers about fighting fascism. As relevant now as ever.

https://album.link/gb/i/684811762