Tag: classics
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Alabama 3 – Cold War Classics Vol. 2 LP
Alabama 3 Cold War Classics Vol. 2 LP (Submarine Cat Records) Before anyone gets nervous about what they might have missed, it’s important to point out that Cold War Classics is not the first Alabama 3 album to feature the erroneous numeric identifier Volume 2 (2002’s acoustic experiment Last Train to Mashville was listed as…
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Rancid – st (7″ EP)
At this stage of their career, it’s almost impossible to envision Rancid as anything other than the four-piece ska/punk powerhouse which has been responsible for songs like “Roots Radicals,” “Ruby Soho,” “Bloodclot,” “Fall Back Down” and “Last One To Die”; they are that punk-identified pop institution. At this point in their career, the band is…
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The Chemical Brothers – Dig Your Own Hole (2LP reissue)
… And then, with the release of Dig Your Own Hole, The Chemical Brothers became a pop culture phenomenon. Now, it could be contended that the arrival and immediate public embrace of Dig Your Own Hole was the result of several different factors intersecting. After grunge, Brit-Pop overtook both the charts and popular imagination thanks…
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The Psychedelic Sound of The Thirteenth Floor Elevators LP
It’s unlikely that anyone would disagree that The 13th Floor Elevators are a really important band in the evolution of rock. Most would cite the band’s debut album as all the proof anyone could need to make the point: “What is it which makes The Psychedelic Sound of The Thirteenth Floor Elevators a classic album?”…
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Rush – Grace Under Pressure LP
Perhaps the most important thing that Rush proved when they released Grace Under Pressure is that (to paraphrase what George Orwell wrote in 1984) the best albums are those which reiterate those things of which people were already aware. In this case, fans already knew that Rush had been the greatest and best-kept secret in…
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Circle Jerks – Group Sex
At this point, six years after the band that Keith Morris, Steven McDonald, Dimitri Coats and Mario Rubalcaba started took off (ahem – no pun intended) and brought hardcore punk into a much brighter and broader spotlight before a much larger audience, the history of where OFF came from and the circumstances which got them…
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Van Halen – s/t
The thing about albums which are truly progressive (to be clear, I’m referring to albums which break new ground – not necessarily prog rock albums) is that their impact on pop music as a whole takes a bit of time to really register. Sure, there’s a chance that they might break through, win fans and…
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Bachman Turner Overdrive – Not Fragile (1974)
Fuck you, I like Bachman Turner Overdrive. At least, just as much as the next guy, anyways. Although I still can’t stand it when “Takin’ Care of Business” blasts outta every junior-hockey rink across the country, these guys actually wrote a few decent tunes in their time, aside from the overplayed hits. Besides, I figured that if anyone…
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Aerosmith Record Store Day Reissues
It is sort of unbelievable when one thinks about how successful Aerosmith got and how fast it happened – especially given the time at which it happened. While it’s totally believable (de rigueur, even) that a band is able to become “the only band that matters” in really short order in the twenty-first century (especially…

