During the first months of COVID I spent a lot of time listening to music from the 60s - Beatles, Beach Boys, Stan Getz, Wes Montgomery, CPE Bach, Joseph Haydn (1760s, 1960s, still the 60s). I've now moved on to the 70s and early 80s, and have had the great album The Turn of a Friendly Card by the Alan Parsons Project on heavy rotation. Anyone who has been jonesing to get back to a casino can listen to it and remember why maybe they shouldn't. "Games People Play" (4:58, with some tasteful guitar licks starting at around 7:55) and "The Turn of a Friendly Card"/"Snake Eyes" (24:01) are favorites. I guess CSNY (and solo Stills and Young), Eagles, and Mozart should show up soon.
If anybody likes a jazz/rock style then check out Sophie Hunger, she is brilliant (my opinion of course lol) Agnes Obel, hard to pin down a style, just great musicians Ane Brun, same as above Got tickets to see all three of them, damn you covid and all the cancellations
Great, great album, although I have to admit that "Almost Cut My Hair" is one of my least favorite CSN(Y) songs (I admit that C is my least favorite of the four, but "Deja Vu" is one of the best songs on the album). People don't realize just how big a deal it was when that album came out, and just how big a deal the group was at that time. The Beatles were breaking up, and CSNY were genuinely viewed as their heirs as the kings of rock music. Not only did this album go septuple platinum (despite mediocre-at-best reviews from the critics who insisted that their amazing harmonies were "too pretty" and Stills' musicianship was "too skillful"), but the four followup solo albums released in 1970 and 1971 were all eagerly anticipated and big hits (3 going gold, and Neil Young's brilliant After the Gold Rush going double platinum).
That first Boston album really was amazing (it was really just Tom Scholz, with Brad Delp’s vocals put on top). It’s a shame that they couldn’t keep the momentum going, in large part because of legal problems with CBS Records and their manager. I had tickets in 1977 to their tour at the New Haven Coliseum, but they abruptly canceled the concert because of these problems. Would have loved to have seen if they could reproduce that studio sound in a live concert.
I've always wondered if they were any good live, especially considering the term "arena rock" was pretty much invented to describe them, but I just can't see it. Way too polished and over-produced to replicate consistently in less than perfect settings. I have this vision of Scholz losing his mind during sound checks.
