1970s Lou Reed was freaky enough that even listening to him try to sell out was an experience worth having. This album went Top Ten, but the title hit is actually one of his weakest numbers. Only "Kill Your Sons" is a classic, but "Ennui" and especially "Billy" (Reed at his artsy, stupid/smart best) are strong numbers that completely sidestep the album's bland AOR production.
Time Peace, with its immediately recognizable Roy Lichtenstein-style cover art, is The Rascals' most popular full-length. That's because the band excelled at churning out incredible singles. "Good Lovin'" -- exuberant, raucous and intensely propulsive -- has retained its freshness despite its endless abuse as a commercial jingle. Time Peace also serves as a map, detailing the band's evolution throughout the 1960s, during which they made the shift from Italian American soul rockers to Big Apple hippies crooning about groovin', rollin' easy and the mystical joys of love. Fantastic stuff!
It's been 30 years since this landmark combo of rock poetry, epic structures and, well, Bruce-ness appeared. Springsteen landed a knockout punch on America's jaw with the title cut, encapsulating the sensitive outsider persona with which he would rule the next 10 years. The re-release has no bonus cuts and doesn't need them.
Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons didn't possess the bandwidth to make "serious" pop like The Beatles and The Beach Boys, but make no mistake about it, they were one of the '60s most potent and influential bands. Look no further than this sprawling 76-track set, which covers everything from early hits such as "Sherry" and the soulful "Working My Way Back To You" to the maniacally catchy theme song for the movie version of Grease. Their sound, deceptively simple at first blush, was a uniquely urban amalgam of doo-wop, rhythm and blues, Tin Pan Alley and the Italian-American pop they grew-up on.
Perhaps Joel's best album, this 1978 release includes the hits "Big Shot" and "My Life" (AKA the Bosom Buddies TV theme). Named after the New York jazz center and produced by the sleek crossover cat Phil Ramone, 52nd Street features a number of fine musicians, including jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.
Not only is Phil Spector one of pop music's greatest producers, but Back to Mono is one of its greatest boxed sets. The four-disc sprawler covers the troubled visionary's golden age: 1958 to '69. The number of iconic tunes it contains is staggering: The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" and "Walking in the Rain," The Crystals' "He's a Rebel," The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," and, of course, Ike and Tina Turner's epic "River Deep, Mountain High." Chances are you've digested many of these tunes via oldies radio, yet Back to Mono also boasts a wealth of exquisite deep cuts.
Released long before "Centerfold" took over the world in 1981, Boston's boogie-obsessed rock 'n' soul masters come off as the most fun live band ever on this 1976 combination of three sets. Just try not to move during "Southside Shuffle, "So Sharp" -- or any song. Peter Wolf's FM DJ-style introduction to "Musta Got Lost" is legendary, and "(Ain't Nothin' But A) House Party" has an all-time-great rock guitar riff opening. Not surprisingly, though, Magic Dick (best stage name ever!) consistently steals the show with his harmonica.
Southside Johnny's debut came out the same year as his pal Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run. The E Street connections don't stop there. The Boss contributed two compositions: "The Fever" and "You Mean So Much to Me"; guitarist Steve Van Zandt added a couple more songwriting credits and also served as producer. Helping establish the Jersey Shore Sound, this record is a punchy mix of horn-laden blue-eyed soul, rhythm and blues, and late-night bar rock. The Jukes are well oiled. Johnny, meanwhile, obviously spent countless hours honing his chops to the sounds emanating from his transistor radio.
Along with Chicago and The Electric Flag, New York's Blood, Sweat & Tears contributed major innovations to horn rock in the late 1960s. What separated BS&T from earlier groups like The Buckinghams and The Young Rascals, both of whom also employed brass, was their love for jazzy ensemble interplay, hippie-inspired poetics and extended pieces that were then considered quite progressive. Because of these qualities, their debut became quite the hit with FM audiences at the time. Listening now, this record has a tendency of showing its Aquarian age. Of course, the monster track is "Spinning Wheel."
If you want to understand the very soul of East Coast rock -- Springsteen, J. Geils, the New York Dolls, Aerosmith, etc. --- you have to listen to Dion DiMucci. His mid-'60s recordings for Columbia are where doo-wop and the urban immigrant experience intersect with American roots music and folk rock. Dig Dion's blistering "Two Ton Feather." This is the Delta blues dressed up as a street-hustlin' Italian-American strutting through the Bronx with a switchblade and leather jacket.
David Johansen's astonishing baritone voice is so well suited to the Animals medley that opens this 1982 live set (his first album as a post-Dolls solo artist), it's easy to think he wrote "We Gotta Get Out of This Place/Don't Bring Me Down/It's My Life" himself. He simply owns the material. Even though the band behind him is decidedly more subdued than Johnny Thunders and Co., there is still plenty of New York sleaze to go around; things are just better lit. "Build Me Up Buttercup" is another major highlight and, of course, "Stranded in the Jungle" rules.
"Two Tickets to Paradise" and "Baby Hold On" are two of Eddie Money's most well-known songs, the pair of which put Money on the map when this debut appeared in 1977. Combining Billy Joel-style lite rock, touches of Motown and the studio slickness of the impending '80s, Eddie Money was always a sort of Huey Lewis and the News you didn't have to hate yourself for liking. There's a little Cheap Trick in there, too, especially in "Wanna Be a Rock 'N' Roll Star." Amazingly, the case can be made that The Black Crowes were influenced by "Save a Little Room in Your Heart for Me."
Johnny Rivers' versatility is boundless. It's something he makes abundantly clear on this epic live album, originally released in 1973. Recorded at Paris' Olympia Theatre, Last Boogie in Paris boasts rockabilly, Tin Pan Alley pop, Summer of Love folk balladry and obviously lots and lots of blistering horn rock. Rivers unleashes several of his hits, among them "Summer Rain," "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu" and "Memphis." To prove he can even explore Quicksilver-inspired jam rock, the singer closes the impressive performance with a 10-minute groover titled "John Lee Hooker '74."
The duo's second album from 1973 is a blue-eyed soul delight with fragments of genius. The LP fuses together laid-back folk, analog synths and Philly-style soul harmonies. The big hit here is "She's Gone," but check out the knockout opening track, "When The Morning Comes," as well as "Had I Known You Better Then."
Teaming up with troubled genius Phil Spector, who reportedly drew a gun on the band during recording sessions, The Ramones attempted to make a commercially minded album, one that bridged the gulf between New York punk rock and the classic 1960s pop of their youth. Wildly hyped at the time of its release in 1980, End of the Century is an uneven affair. Not surprisingly, Spector's wall-of-sound production style lacks focus. That said, on "Do You Remember Rock N' Roll Radio?", as well as "The Return of Jackie and Judy" and The Ronettes' "Baby, I Love You," the band totally nails the concept.
Despite the radical upheaval of the 1960s, Jay & The Americans not only survived, they thrived. They scored, with more than a little help from the Brill Building's cadre of heavyweight songwriters, an absurd number of hits. Nearly every one, as this triple-disc set proves, was built of identical material: crooner vocals lifted from a bygone era, saccharine strings and a faint whiff of doo-wop. Imagine Bobby Vinton fronting The Four Seasons, and that's Jay & The Americans. Just about the only track that sounds even vaguely cool is the neo-Elvis groover "You Ain't as Hip as All That, Baby."
Mink DeVille, led by one Willy DeVille, shared stages with many of New York's first-wave punk acts in the mid-'70s. But as the group's debut album reveals, their punchy and deliciously street savvy rhythm and blues shares just as much in common with Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny as it does The New York Dolls and Patti Smith. "Little Girl" in particular is vintage Big Apple pop, a ballad of romantic yearning that sounds like a cross between Dion and Lou Reed. In fact, you could say Cabretta is what Reed attempted to create with the decidedly less successful Sally Can't Dance album.
