PROG RELATED

Two of my biggest "take aways" in checking out 10CC's music was one, just how much humour there is in it. I mean I thought of Zappa a lot when I checked out "Sheet Music" but there's less of that Zappa sound here. The other thing that surprised me was how much the vocals and arrangements screamed QUEEN. Contemporaries all the way so it's interesting. That QUEEN flavour that was on "Sheet Music" is blown up here, it's all over "The Original Soundtrack". They are an interesting parallel QUEEN and 10CC with of course one being more Rock and the other more Pop, but I'm betting if you were a fan of one, you were a fan of the other.

"I'm Not In Love" is the outstanding track on here, I'm not huge on anything else including the opener that sounds so much like QUEEN and I've just never been the biggest QUEEN fan. The piano and harmonies bring them to mind and this does get theatrical including some silliness. Oh man disco came to mind with "Blackmail" no thanks, and while I like track four, the lyrics not so much. Sugary vocals on "Brand New Day" and QUEEN-like harmonies. "Life Is A Minestrone" is fun and the closer "The Film Of My Love" is all about the nostalgia. My parents might have liked this one.

I'm already looking forward to spending time with their next record to see how they developed or changed. Such a talented band.

The album comes off as being a renewing of friendships and the making of new ones I'm sure. They are having a lot of fun and while I wouldn't call this Canterbury music at all, it does have that spirit with the naughty lyrics at times and humour. While this is Carla's baby her husband Michael Mantler engineered it and plays trumpet on here. And lets talk about who is on here. The lineup surpasses the music big time in my opinion. Besides Mantler's trumpet we have Gary Windo on horns and flute, Chris Spedding guitar, Steve Swallow bass, Robert Wyatt and Karen Kraft vocals and Nick Mason drums, and he co-produced this with Carla. Carla plays keyboards on here.

This was released in 1981 but recorded late in 1979 after "The Wall" sessions. This is where Nick was de-stressing from those "The Wall" recordings where Roger was in fine form. Michael Mantler released a solo album in 1976 called "The Hapless Child And Other Inscrutable Stories" and Nick mixed that record and added some spoken word bits. That album had Wyatt, Bley and Swallow as well as Jack DeJohnette and Terje Rypdal. Mantler's next solo album from '77 had Chris Spedding on it while his 1978 record called "Movies" had Swallow, Bley as well as Tony Williams on drums and Larry Coryel on guitar. His 1980 "More Movies" has Bley, Swallow, Windo as well as Philip Catherine guitar and D. Sharpe drums a long time collaborator with Carla and doing backing vocals here on "Fictitious Sports".

I just wanted to show the connections with all of these wonderful musicians and albums, this is the one where they let their hair down and enjoyed themselves. Having said that the closer on here "I'm A Mineralist" sounds like a Steven Wilson song, in fact I have no doubt he took inspiration from this. Even during the harmonies I'm going "This is Wilson all the way." Melancholic as Wyatt tells a story. The disappointment is those female vocal melodies bringing to mind "The Great Gig In The Sky" but more subdued I guess you could say late on "Hot River".

Several years ago I felt this was a low 4 star record based really on what it is, but if I'm honest with myself this is a true 3.5 star record, inconsistent with some moments for sure.

That sonic assault is present in all the nuances that Led Zeppelin knew how to make use of, such as the early hard rock in Page's boxed guitar riffs in the fleeting aggressiveness of "Good Times, Bad Times" and "Communication Breakdown", or the spirited folk vein of the excellent "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You", a piece adapted from the singer of the genre Anne Bredon and also covered by Joan Baez, or the intense blues of the superlative "You Shook Me" and the Hammond of John Paul Jones going beyond his role as bass player and "I Can't Quit You Baby" with the Plant/Page duo in a superb voice/guitar duel, both pieces unbeatable adaptations taken from the American bluesman Wilie Dixon.

And the combination of blues and psychedelia of the experimental "Dazed and Confused" (in my opinion the best track on the album and not without some skirmishes with the American singer-songwriter Jack Holmes over royalties), and "How Many More Times" with Page at the helm of the bowed guitar (so called because of the use of the violin bow instead of a pick to achieve that particular sound) and John Bonham in great form as on the whole album, complete the collage of the auspicious debut of the English band.

A new way of understanding and interpreting music was born with Led Zeppelin and their iconic first album is still an obligatory reference today.

4 stars

I don't remember hearing any of these songs back in the 70's although apparently "The Wall Street Shuffle" and "Silly Love" were released as singles. Honestly I will repeat myself a lot if I describe each track. Lots of piano, plenty of guitar, both upped by the vocals and silliness. "The Worst Band In The World" is a sarcastic track with the focus on the vocals and Zappa came to mind.

My least favourite song is "Hotel" for the lyrics and silliness. "Old Wise Men" isn't much better. I thought of QUEEN on "Somewhere In Hollywood" the longest track at over 6 minutes. "Baron Samedi" is a nervous sounding piece, quite jittery. Rough vocals at times. Zappa came to mind in spades on "The Sacro-Lliac" with those vocal arrangements. The closer has a country vibe to it and is a catchy vocal driven tune.

Not my music at all but I enjoyed spending time with it, a talented band. They were Neil Sedaka's backing band? Lol.

Vangelis, as a composer, was much of a free-spirit and often puzzled his fans (for example, with albuns like Soil Festivities and Invisible Connections not long after releasing the popular Chariots of Fire). Beaubourg, as a follow-up of Albedo 0.39 and Spiral certainly shocked many of the casual fans.

Avant-garde and minimalist in nature, the album is all about fragmentary melodies here and there, experiments with tones, sparse sounds and no rhythm at all. It is very experimental in the sense that it experiments with characteristics of the sound itself: heavy reverberation, stereo effects, relying heavily on the synthesizer filters and effects rather than the oscillators. There are lots of silences and pauses that are very important to the nature of the composition. Vangelis manages to fill 40 minutes of the album with a great listening experience for fans of the genre.

This is, of course, out of reach for many people, because it is simply not their genre. But for people who dig this highly experimental and avant-garde compositions in the tradition of the classical composers of the second half of the twentieth century, it is a tremendous work. And that is why it deserves a high rating, even if it is not for everyone.

One thing that amazes me on those works by Vangelis, including the celebrated elsewhere victim of some prejudice among prog fans "Chariots of Fire" is that, composing and playing almost everything, the Greek composer and musician knows exactly what should go where in every song, even with the countless possibilities that the synthesizers bring. One has to recognize that it seems to be much more complex than prog composers that compose the general flow of the songs on their main instrument and then use the talents of their bandmates to fill in the arrangemets of their own instruments.

In China, it is all there, and songs like Yin & Yang and Himalaya, that blend beautiful harmonies and soundscapes with experimental lead synth flourishes here and there make the work uniquely pleasant. Some other songs mix well the experimental aspects and the quasi-symphonic and traditional folk, like Chung Kuo. There is a good variety of compositions, some more straightforward, some more complex, and listening to the entire album is a very pleasant experience.

Of course, lots of people don't like very much Vangelis works because they are shy in the "rock" component (it is almost non-existent on this album), but it is a lot better musically than almost everything that was being done in the realms of the progressive music by 1979.

That first track is pretty good especially the instrumental sections. A fairly heavy and determined sound. The second track is not that great, kind of a pale version of the opener. The next two songs to end the suite deal with war. Both are exceptional tracks. The album cover and especially the album's title would have been so controversial in 1970. A bold move and then John Peel starts playing that third track about soldiers with such meaningful and passionate words. An anti-war track that Peel would play regularly giving this band a huge spotlight. And what a song! No doubt there were many haters for this one but the lyrics are right on. The biting words and the way he says "...you know " after certain lines just works so well. The fourth one of the suite ends with a nuclear explosion but we get some walking bass and killer guitar as well. Such a good song.

The last five tracks don't quite measure up to the last two before it but this is a fairly consistent album and there's something about each of the last five that works for me. "Garden" might be my favourite of those for the lyrics and sound. The closer "Eccentric Man..." is little heavier and a little slower and quite catchy, a highlight. 4 stars.

"Made In Heaven" is the fifteenth studio album of Queen and was released in 1995, four years after the dead of Freddie Mercury. This is the last album from the band to feature vocals from him when he was alive. However, after Freddie Mercury's dead in 1991, the remaining members of Queen have worked with previously recorded vocals and piano parts that Freddie recorded before he passed away, along with newly recorded lyrics by the remaining band's members, to create another new studio album. It included two songs, with a new musical arrangement of Freddie Mercury's solo album, "Mr. Bad Guy" and "I Was Born To Love You", and "Made In Heaven". The song "My Life Has Been Saved" has a version launched in 1989, the compact with the song "Scandal" released on their thirteenth studio album "The Miracle".

Prior to its release, some critics thought Queen were cashing in. Instead, Queen wrote the perfect final chapter to an amazing career. Some fans were disappointed in the 80's and some new fans were introduced in the 80's. Still, "Made in Heaven" is an album that won't disappoint, whether you're a fan of the 70's hard rock or the 80's pop rock, indeed.

"Made In Heaven" has officially, eleven tracks. The first track "It's A Beautiful Day" written by Queen and Freddie Mercury is a nice song, where the vocals and piano sounds beautifully. This is a good song to introduce the album. The second track "Made In Heaven" written by Freddie Mercury was originally from his solo album "Mr. Bad Guy". This is a version which was given a special treatment to sounds more like a Queen's song. I think this is a better version than the original. The third track "Let Me Live" written by Queen is a rock ballad that features vocals from Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor. It was completed after Freddie Mercury's dead. It's a good song that sounds to the early Queen's sound. The fourth track "Mother Love" written by Freddie Mercury and Brian May was the final song co-written by both, and was also Freddie Mercury's last vocal performance. It's a good and beautiful song with sad and depressing lyrics that notice that he knew perfectly well that he was going to die soon. The fifth track "My Life Has Been Saved" written by Queen and John Deacon is, in my humble opinion, one of the weakest songs on the album. However, it remains a good and enjoyable song to hear. The sixth track "I Was Born To Love You" written by Freddie Mercury, was another song originally recorded for his solo album "Mr. Bad Guy". After he passed away, the band remixed it and added instrumentation, turning it into a fast rock song. This is a good and nice song to hear. The seventh track "Heaven For Everyone" written by Roger Taylor is a beautiful and sentimental track. Despite be a song taken from Roger Taylor's album "The Cross", this version sounds as a Queen's song. The eighth track "Too Much Love Will Kill You" written by Brian May, Frank Musker and Elizabeth Lamers is one of the highlights on the album. It was initially made for "The Miracle", but it was never released. Later, Brian May recorded it for his debut solo album "Back To The Light". This is a nice song that I like very much. The ninth track "You Don't Fool Me" written by Queen was one of the last songs to be recorded for the album. It isn't a very good song. It sounds too much to funky and disco and has nothing to do with the Queen's sound. It's a bit dated in our days. The tenth track "A Winter's Tale" written by Queen and Freddie Mercury is a beautiful song. It was the last song composed solely by Freddie Mercury and was recorded two weeks before his dead. The eleventh track "It's A Beautiful Day (Reprise)", as its name says is the reprise of the first song. It's a better version than the first one. It has new and different musical arrangements and a heavier rock piece of music at the end of it.

The CD also features two tracks that aren't presented on the data shed of the album. The twelfth track "Yeah" is an excerpt from "It's a Beautiful Day (Reprise)", where Freddie Mercury shouts "Yeah" that has no more than 4 seconds. The thirteenth track is a light track, where hardly we can hear anything because is recorded too much low. Its name was never mentioned, but some says is called "Mystique". It symbolizes the passing of Freddie Mercury to the Paradise.

Conclusion: I can see some parallelism between "Made In Heaven" and "An American Prayer" of The Doors, despite being two completely different musical proposals. As many of you know, both albums were released with some material recorded by both artists before their dead, and were released by the remaining members of both bands, after they died. Relatively to "Made In Heaven", and musically speaking, we are in presence of a great album, with songs like "Made In Heaven", "I Was Born To Love You", "Heaven For Everyone" and "Too Much Love Will Kill You", which did our delights, while we drove our cars and listened the car radio, instead of having to listen some kind of pop music without any kind of quality and imagination. So, "Made In Heaven" probably should be rated with 4 stars. However, I have a problem in doing that. In the first place, its music hasn't any kind of progressivity and we are on a progressive site. In the second place, I rated "Queen", "Sheer Heart Attack", "A Day At The Races" and "Innuendo" with 4 stars. Thus, it would be unfair to give the same rating to it too. So, the right thing to do is to rate "Made In Heaven" with 3 solid stars, really.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)