On This Date in 1981: The Teardrop Explodes released their second album, Wilder, which included the singles “Colours Fly Away”, “Passionate Friend”and “Tiny Children,” but every track on the album is amazing. Wilder reached position #29 on the UK albums chart but did not chart in the US, though it is certainly one of my very favorite albums of the 80s.
Thanks to The P5 Blogspot For The Tip!
Just when you think you know everything there is to know about The Beatles, Neatorama runs a post with a few cool stories behind different Beatles album covers. I especially love this one about HELP!, a film and album which already hold so many cool memories for me:
For the HELP! photo shoot, photographer Robert Freeman warmed up by shooting publicity stills of the band playing around in the Austrian snow. In the process, he realized that their arm motions reminded him of semaphore, a system of emergency naval communications using waving flags. Because the album title was conveniently four characters long, the photographer had each member of the group spell out a letter using the code. However, Freeman found that the arm motions for H-E-L-P were much less aesthetically pleasing than the positions for N-U-J-V, so he decided to use those letters instead.
Read more stories behind the covers for The White Album, Sgt Pepper and Abbey Road at This Link.
You Decide.
On This Date, July 6th in in 1973: Queen released their debut single, “Keep Yourself Alive,” in the U.K. on EMI Records. What a great song!
OK, I realize it’s not even April yet, but I’m predicting now that there will be no better album released in the year 2010 than MGMT’s sophomore release, Congratulations; due to drop officially on April 13th. Downloads of Congratulations first leaked all over the Internet weeks ago, so of course this work of sheer aural bliss found its way to me, as things of great genius tend to do. Being blessed with a pair of old-school rock and roll ears, these nine heavily 60s and 70s influenced tracks appealed to me on first listen. Yes, this album is a massive departure from the dense electro-pop of Oracular Spectacular – which was my favorite album of 2008. And in this case, change is good.
Continue reading Album of the Year: MGMT’s Congratulations!
