Mojo Collection , livre ebook

Contents

The Album Is Dead!? Long Live The Album!
An introduction to The MOJO Collection


What Have We Here?
Making the best of The MOJO Collection

The Beginning
The first vinyl pop album


The 1950s
The Cold War breaks out. Hollywood stumbles, TV triumphs . The teenager is created. Jive turns to rock. The King arrives from the Sun. The US and USSR race to the moon. Kids race to the top of the British charts on washboards


The 1960s
You never had it so good. A US president assassinated, a British Cabinet disgraced. From Love Me Do to Let It Be. From I Saw Her Standing There to Visions Of Johanna. Psychedelics, pot, the pill. Colour TV, black power. The sex war breaks out. A call to women’s liberation. A giant leap for mankind


The 1970s
The dream is over. A Stairway To Heaven. LSD decimalised. The first clang of metal, the last days of peace and love. The singer-songwriter prospers. From high street hi-fi to Quadrophenia. Strikes, slumps, glitter, disco, punk, P-funk. "I will survive"/"No future." The King is dead. God save the Dancing Queen


The 1980s
A new romance. Maggie, Ronnie and their pet yuppies. From Prince Charming to Terminator X. Video helps the radio star. The Me Generation speaks: "I want my MTV." Frankie Says Relax. HIV. Live Aid. The silver disc for all; perfect sound forever. The PC arrives. Wall Street thrives, the Berlin Wall crumbles



The 1990s
Here we are now, entertain us. Take That and party. E’s are good. Hip hop don’t stop. Britpop gets hot. DCC flops. Corporate rock booms. DVD looms. Supa Dupa Fly and the World Wide Web


The 2000s
The new millennium, reality TV and the question Is This It? When it’s all Back to Black at a Funeral, and the angry young men are insisting that ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’ whilst the older generation just keep grinding on …


MOJO Miscellaneous


The Easy Life
Lounging, and collecting the music it spawned


The Single Life
Reggae, the music that didn’t believe in the album


100 Great Soundtracks
Music to watch films by


The Best Of The Best Ofs
100 Great Compilations


Index
Find your favourite in an instant

The Album Is Dead!? Long Live The Album!
Welcome to an ever-changing world of sound and music …
Never in the history of the music industry have we enjoyed such a state of flux. The digital download revolution has created a sense of adventure and uncertainty in equal measure. More significant than that is the fact that it has actually opened up further avenues that allow for the greater discovery of music. The recent polemic among artists and the industry, however, has led to a debate as to whether the art form of the album is dead. Within that there are those who believe that it is and that tracks have superseded collected bodies of work, and then there are the zealots who maintain that no meaningful musical statement can be made without a full exposition of an artist’s talent. In truth, both parties are right and have precedents to prove it.
In the case of the Track-ites (as we shall call them), they need but point to the fecund world of early blues and R&B to showcase the fact that short, sharp commercial statements have also been hugely important in the development of popular music. The Album-ites however can point to music’s most fertile period of 1965 to 1985, during which the long-player held sway and produced some of the defining statements in popular culture. Either way, the key within all of this is the quality of the music, and that’s where The MOJO Collection comes in.
Essentially the weighty tome you hold in your hand was conceived over a long period of time, the initial conversations dating back to 2000. The first volume of the book was commissioned and edited by MOJO’s very own Jim Irvin, who meticulously and expertly created a basis of this encyclopaedia. Since then music has of course refused to sit still, hence the revisions and additions that have been made throughout the various editions and which brings us to this very latest volume.
Of course, even as I write there are a number of albums that spring to mind as worthy inclusions (I could list them, but the list would be too long). Then there’s the manner in which we should probably incorporate tracks and singles. These, however, are philosophical debates that are bound to run and run and revisions that we will continue to make as the book continues to grow and evolve.
Despite all this and regardless of any sea changes that may occur in the manner in which music is consumed, The MOJO Collection should provide you with a sound basis on which to build the best music collection in the world. And should you need more recommendations, then do join us in our monthly celebration of music that is MOJO magazine, or via the message-boards of www.mojo4music.com, where boasting about music is actively encouraged.
Until the fifth edition, then, friends …


PHIL ALEXANDER Editor-In-Chief MOJO London, England September, 2007

What Have We Here?
Making the best of The MOJO Collection
The albums are arranged chronologically by release date. At the rear of the book are indexes by artist and album title. This is a celebration of an art form – the pop album. We’ve selected hundreds of them from the very first vinyl pop album in 1946 to important releases from the first half of 2007 – and found out how they happened.


As well as the main text for each album, every entry of The MOJO Collection comprises the following information where available:


Artist


Album Title
If an album is known by more than one name we’ve used that of the original issue


Label
The label the album originally appeared on in the UK


Producer


Recording Information
Location and date recorded, if known


Release Date
Date first issued in the UK


Chart Peaks
Highest album chart placing in the UK and US, if available


Personnel
The key players and technicians. Abbreviations as follows:


ae = assistant engineer
ag = acoustic guitar
ar = arranger
as = alto saxophone
b = bass
bs = baritone sax
bv = backing vocals
c = cello
d = drums
db = double bass
e = engineer
ep = electric piano
g = guitar
hm = harmonica
k = keyboards
m = mixer
o = organ
p = piano
pc = percussion
ps = pedal steel guitar
rg = rhythm guitar
s = saxophone
sg = steel guitar
syn = synthesizer
t = trumpet
tb = trombone
ts = tenor sax
v = vocals
va = viola
vn = violin


More esoteric instruments – zither, vibraphone, alpine horn etc – are listed in full


Track Listing
Running order of the original UK release


Running Time
Total time of original album


Current CD
The catalogue number of the most recent CD edition of the album. If no label is shown the original label applies. If the album has been reissued on a different label, that’s here, plus the details of any bonus tracks, omissions or alterations


Further Listening
Other albums by the same artist that best complement this one, interesting solo albums or side projects


Further Reading
The best biographies (whether or not they are still in print) and/or the most informative website


Download
Pointing you in the direction of where/whether you can download the record

The Beginning





Frank Sinatra
The Voice Of Frank Sinatra
The Voice Of The Century pioneers the vinyl pop LP .

Record label: Columbia
Produced: Manny Sachs
Recorded: Hollywood; July 30, 1945 and New York City; December 7, 1945
Released: March 4, 1946
Chart peaks: None (UK) 1 (US)
Personnel: Frank Sinatra (v) Axel Stordahl and his Orchestra
Track listing: You Go To My Head; Someone To Watch Over Me; These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You); Why Shouldn’t I?; I Don’t Know Why (I Just Do); Try A Little Tenderness; (I Don’t Stand) A Ghost Of A Chance; Paradise
Running time: 23.21
Current CD: Sony SNY621002 adds: Mam’selle; That Old Feeling; If I Had You; The Nearness Of You; Spring Is Here; Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear To Tread); When You Awake; It Never Entered My Mind; Always; (I Don’t Stand) A Ghost Of A Chance (alternate take)
Further listening: Sing And Dance With Frank Sinatra (1950), the first album that Frank, with arranger George Siravo and producer Mitch Miller, shaped with a microgroove LP in mind. After that, take your pick from the wealth of mainly superb releases through Capitol and Reprise.
Further reading: Sinatra! The Song Is You (Will Friedwald 1995) is the most detailed book on Sinatra’s recording career; his daughter’s Sinatra – An American Legend (Nancy Sinatra, 1995) is the most lavishly illustrated. Also try The Sinatra Teasures (Charles Pignon, 2004); www.blue-eyes.com (fansite)
Download: iTunes
In 1946 you could buy these eight songs on four heavy, perishable, 10-inch, shellac 78rpm discs packaged together in a binder to resemble a book. It was a format known in the trade as an album.
It sold like crazy, for this was the period when ‘Swoonatra’ was cresting his huge first wave of popularity. At the beginning of the decade, the skinny ‘kid’ from Hoboken, New Jersey had made a phenomenal impact upon leaving the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra to go solo. A well-orchestrated publicity campaign attracted pop’s first posse of screaming school-age girls. By the time of these recordings he’d crossed into the affections of adults too and made inroads into a creditable film career with the hit movie Anchors Aweigh. Not surprisingly, when Columbia began releasing 10-inch microgroove long-playing records in early 1949, this was the first pop item to appear in the new format. The collection found Francis Albert Sinatra – aged 30 when these songs were sung – in a romantic mode, interpreting eight standards with the aid of his long-te