Album Reviews

Thanks to an analogplanet.com reader I got a copy to review of the two LP deluxe edition of Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones Records 376-484-4).

When I interviewed singer/songwriter Jack Tempchin recently I joked about why older songwriters often lose their creativity.

Hunky Dory introduced a kinder, gentler David Bowie after two heavy albums laden with mythological imagery and pleasant dread—not that this album doesn't also include heavy doses of the latter.

"Jenny Sings Lenny" as Mr. Cohen playfully referenced this album in a cartoon included in the original release's liner notes but for some reason omitted here, both technically and musically has never sounded better.

Of course the only "ultimate" Sinatra collection for fans is having a huge collection of his albums on Columbia, Capitol and Reprise—the label he started—plus some of the original 78s from the late '30's up until the era of the long playing record.

Recorded music comes to us pressed in plastic and frozen in time. The work leading up to the master often gets lost, tossed or erased and recorded over without a thought that it might be of interest to anyone. That’s most often true. Alternate takes, when they do surface, usually make clear why they were passed over in favor of the one programmed into your brain, though there are exceptions.

Music re-mixes may not be as complicated or as critical as brain surgery but when it comes to The Beatles, you could make the case.