Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
From the opening segment of Van Halen’s sixth studio album, you can’t help feel the expectation ooze majestically from the American rock band.
Tag Archives: 30th Anniversary Retrospective.
Paul Simon, Hearts And Bones. 30th Anniversary Retrospective.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *
Paul Simon, whilst quite rightly regarded as one of the most important and influential American musicians and songwriters of the 20th Century, has had moments in which, no matter how much you love him, you have to take a long hard look at his creative output and suggest that some albums really should have been left locked away in the vault and only ever released as a set of curiosities long after the gifted musician hangs up his guitar for the final time. Such is the fate that should have befallen the 1983 Hearts and Bones release.
Genesis, Genesis. 30th Anniversary Retrospective.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
When it comes to Genesis, the rich tapestry of the band which started out from Charterhouse Public School and ended up as one of the biggest Progressive Rock groups ever, doesn’t neatly divide fans one way or the other in terms of musical values in certain eras, it manages to do it during the course of an album as well.
Billy Joel, An Innocent Man. 30th Anniversary Retrospective.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
For anyone in the U.K. or Europe who loved their music to have an American twist then the Summer of 1983 saw Billy Joel, one of the biggest music artists ever from the United States, have perhaps arguably the most commercially incredible time of his career to date as he released the stunning An Innocent Man onto the music world.
Metallica, Kill ‘Em All. 30th Anniversary Retrospective.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *
For many it was the album that was the beginning of Thrash Metal. The next logical step from Heavy Metal that found its way from America as in an exuberant recognition that British Heavy Metal had stolen a march on the genre. Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All certainly stands out as being part of the genre but it’s overall feel 30 years after its release is more of being the partially formed conception, the gestation period before the moment of truth with Metallica’s Ride The Lightning coming in 1984 and the genre exploding in its classic era between 1985 and 1992 when bands such as Sacred Reich, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax easily stood head and shoulders above anything coming out of continental Europe and in some respects the U.K.
Yazoo, You And Me Both. 30th Anniversary Retrospective.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
If you are going to go out, leave them demanding more. A maxim that suits Yazoo’s second album You and Me Both right down to the ground. After the huge success of the band’s debut album Upstairs At Eric’s which reached the near unprecedented heights of number two in the U.K. album chart and breaking the U.S Billboard Hot 100, the creativity that Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke weaved together followed through in to the recording of You And Me Both and yet on the eve of the album’s release they announced their separation. Whilst they would eventually get back together for a series of gigs in 2008, the flow had been broken but at least fans have the debut and this excellent follow up to remind them of what exactly the pair bought to the table.
Iron Maiden, Piece Of Mind. 30th Anniversary Retrospective.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
As debuts go, Bruce Dickinson’s first album with Iron Maiden, The Number Of The Beast was and still is, a huge success, a towering behemoth full of stand-out Metal songs that even after 30 years can make the hair on the back of the neck not just stand up but revel in what the band put together. To follow that up would take something monumental, something that would have to crawl out of the pit of darkness and shine a light on the group that Iron Maiden were to come.
David Bowie, Let’s Dance. 30th Anniversary Retrospective.
Where Queen led a year before hand in their release of Hot Space, David Bowie was probably bound to go for the 1983 album Let’s Dance. However where Queen went arguably and disastrously wrong, The Thin White Duke, the master musical chameleon could only do right and Let’s Dance stands out as, up until the release this year of his album The Next Day, the last great and most adventurous album of a long and prestigious career.
Pink Floyd, The Final Cut. 30th Anniversary Retrospective.
It seems slightly ironic that at a time when the Falklands debate rages once more between the U.K. and Argentinian Governments, an album that uses the conflict between the two countries as a focus for an anti-war message should be celebrating its 30th anniversary. It is almost with bitterness and a shaking of heads that Pink Floyd’s 1983 album The Final Cut should still resonate across the many thousands of miles between Buenos Aires and London. Even after the Falkland Islanders have had the unprecedented and historic vote in the last few weeks on where they see their future, the echoes of a conflict that was born in the spring of 1982 but had its genesis over a period of a couple of hundred years, still rages and the thoughts of the people caught between two ideologically opposed governments might in the end not matter.
Eurythmics, Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This). 30th Anniversary Retrospective.
It was the album that made Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox household names and gave life to the blurring of female sexuality in its songs and many accompanying videos. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) saw the pair, in the form of their band Eurythmics, break away from their past music lives completely and take on established bands who had carved out success as part of the electronic revolution that had taken place. Driven by Dave Stewart’s excellent grip on the flourishing medium and Annie Lennox’s distinctive vocals, the pair made their commercial breakthrough with Sweet Dreams… and it was well worth it.