The Album Considered

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STEVE REICH: DIFFERENT TRAINS/ELECTRIC COUNTERPOINT, CONSIDERED (1989): Repeat as required

7 Apr 2025  |  3 min read

The 1965 recording It's Gonna Rain by the New York composer Steve Reich was one of the most interesting, innovative and important pieces of its era. At least for Reich. In San Francisco, Reich had heard a streetcorner preacher Brother Walter in apocalyptic mode warning of another Great Flood to wipe out sinners, and Reich recorded him. As with Dylan's Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, Reich... > Read more

CAT MOTHER AND THE ALL NIGHT NEWSBOYS. THE STREET GIVETH … AND THE STREET TAKETH AWAY, CONSIDERED (1969): The musicians not the music?

28 Mar 2025  |  4 min read

For the moment let's not worry about the music on this old album pulled from the shelves at random for consideration in this on-going series. The music will make itself known to us as we go. Let's instead just concentrate on the names involved, who they were, where they went and who they became. There is a story worth telling right there. The co-producer of this debut album by the... > Read more

DIED PRETTY. DOUGHBOY HOLLOW, CONSIDERED (1991): Caught by the turning tide

17 Mar 2025  |  2 min read

Australia has unleashed scores of exciting bands and artists but as time moves on the number becomes distilled down to just the most memorable: the Easybeats, expat Bee Gees, the Saints, Birthday Party, AC/DC, the Church, Cold Chisel, INXS, Midnight Oil, the Angels, Paul Kelly, Renee Geyer, Go-Betweens, Silverchair, Men at Work . . . But just behind those big names were many others within... > Read more

Out in the Rain

COLE WILSON AND HIS TUMBLEWEEDS: COUNTRY SONGS VOL 1 and 2, CONSIDERED (1952): That old time C'n'W religion. Yodel-eh-ee-hoo.

10 Mar 2025  |  3 min read

Pulling albums from the shelves at random for this column is, of course, not without its risks. Sometimes you get to greet a familiar friend, other times you encounter barely known strangers. And then . . . Then you pull out Cole Wilson and His Tumbleweeds' first album of country songs, and so you might as well listen to the second volume which was right beside it. Wilson was a... > Read more

Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

HARMONIA AND ENO '76; TRACKS AND TRACES REISSUE, CONSIDERED (2009): The quiet revolution

3 Mar 2025  |  2 min read

Even during his days in Roxy Music, Brian Eno professed an admiration for not just the music coming out of the German electronic movement (Can and so on) but for their collective spirit. They often lived communally and kept outside the mainstream, and (the commune thing excepted) so did he. That they had so many musical interests in common meant it was inevitable at some point they would... > Read more

Harmonia and Eno: Vamos Companeros

VARIOUS ARTISTS, THAT SUMMER!, CONSIDERED (1979): Generation defining classics and lesser artists

17 Feb 2025  |  2 min read

In a recent conversation, the topic of the MTV channel devoted just to the '80s came up. One of our number gave the reason succinctly, “because in the Eighties they had great songs”. Simple as that. And quite true when you think of it. Aside from a few key examples – Bowie, T. Rex, the odd solo Beatle like McCartney, Elton, Fleetwood Mac, BeeGees and other chart... > Read more

Another Girl, Another Planet by the Only Ones

TOM JONES: GREEN GREEN GRASS OF HOME, CONSIDERED (1967): Here come the other people

10 Feb 2025  |  2 min read

Anyone who digs through the bins of cheap records at op shops or secondhand stores “just in case” knows this: the careers of Nana Mouskouri, Des O'Connor, Ivan Rebroff, Harry Secombe, James Last and scores of others are not going to undergo any great reconsideration. Their work in the Sixties and Seventies has become redundant. One of the reasons their careers stalled after... > Read more

All I Get From You is Heartaches

VARIOUS ARTISTS. AFRICAN DUB ALL-MIGHTY CHAPTER ONE, CONSIDERED (1975): More and less than what it seems

27 Jan 2025  |  3 min read

Although the legendary Jamaican producer Joe Gibbs has his name prominent on this -- the first of a series of four dub albums released under the African Dub name -- it's actually less about him and more about the jigsaw puzzle of mixed together contributors who Errol Thompson arranged. Pulled off the shelves at random for consideration, Chapter One is a reminder of just how elementally... > Read more

Schooling the Dub

TERRY RILEY: SHRI CAMEL, CONSIDERED (1978): Listening is easy with eyes closed

25 Nov 2024  |  2 min read

For most people, even if they haven't heard a note by him, their reference point for the career of Terry Riley is often distilled into just two words: In C. That was the title of his breakthrough, Sixties minimalist album (recorded for the first time in '68), a composition which allows for infinite flexibility. It has been performed by musicians from China and Mali, by Indian musicians... > Read more

SYBIL: SYBIL, CONSIDERED (1989): An album to walk on by

16 Sep 2024  |  1 min read

Pulling this album off the shelves at random has been an education. It is beautifully unplayed and of course there is no rational explanation for how it came to be on the sagging shelves at Elsewhere. But perhaps here might be an answer. This US r'n'b singer might not have done any serious chart damage in her homeland or the UK with this second album (#75 in the US, #21 in Britain) but... > Read more

Bad Beats Suite

VARIOUS ARTISTS: OUT OF THE CORNERS, CONSIDERED (1982): Sisterhood was doing it for itself

19 Aug 2024  |  3 min read

When the New Zealand Herald wrote about this independent album of female artists released by the Web Women's Collective – which included the Topp Twins, Mahina Tocker, Di Cadwallader, Val Murphy and others – the article appeared on the Mainly Women page. To be fair to the Herald, it didn't have entertainment or album review pages at the time and so at least it did cover this... > Read more

DORY PREVIN, REFLECTIONS IN A MUD PUDDLE, CONSIDERED (1971): Death, pain, disasters and really nice songs

15 Jul 2024  |  4 min read

Any number of women artist from the Sixties and Seventies – Vashti Bunyan, PP Arnold, Doris Troy and others – have undergone a career revival or rediscovery in recent years. But Dory Previn – who died in 2012 aged 86 – still seems to be overlooked. Could it be because she wrote lyrics which even by today's hip-hop and r'n'b standards would be considered... > Read more

PORTSMOUTH SINFONIA: PLAYS THE POPULAR CLASSICS, CONSIDERED (1974): So bad it's . . . just bad?

24 Jun 2024  |  3 min read  |  1

In the liner notes to this hilariously unlistenable and sometimes punishingly painful album, the producer Brian Eno notes that “it is important to stress the main characteristic of the orchestra, that all the members of the Sinfonia share the desire to play the pieces as accurately as possible”. Well, they might try. But they can't . . . and in fact their renditions of In... > Read more

YOKO ONO: BETWEEN MY HEAD AND THE SKY, CONSIDERED (2009): And Yoko got the band to play

17 Jun 2024  |  4 min read

When Yoko Ono released her artistically packaged Onobox in 1992 -- a six CD retrospective of a solo career which had ceased in the mid Eighties -- that would seemed to have been it from the most famous widow in the world. She was almost 60; had stopped recording because as she wryly noted "there seemed no great call" from the public for any more albums by her; and her attention... > Read more

Higa Noboru

THE BEE GEES: ODESSA, CONSIDERED (1969): All at sea in separate lifeboats

27 May 2024  |  4 min read  |  2

In 16 months from early 1967 when they returned to Britain after a trip back home to Australia, the Bee Gees cracked out a remarkable six hit singles and three albums. Their writing, recording and touring schedule was extraordinary, perhaps only matched by the Beatles' work ethic who were, for a time, their real chart rivals. But for a group which crafted tight radio pop there was a... > Read more

Melody Fair

TOM WAITS. THE HEART OF SATURDAY NIGHT, CONSIDERED (1974): Drunk on the moon again

20 May 2024  |  3 min read

Unlike other albums considered for this on-going column, this one by Tom Waits didn't come off the shelf at random. Although it sort of did. As mentioned previously, during the floods of 2022 Elsewhere's office was awash and so we lost around 800 albums and scores of CDs, books, travel journals and family photos. Among those so damaged were about 20 albums by a longtime favourite... > Read more

Shiver Me Timbers

ROD STEWART. SMILER, CONSIDERED (1974): All the way to the bank

12 May 2024  |  1 min read

When Rod Stewart's Smiler album came off the shelves at random for this on-going column it was probably the first time it had been on the stereo for 20 years, if not more. And it is a surprising album. Surprising in how lazy it was. Stewart as a songwriter steps back for an album of mostly covers and – in the case of Paul McCartney's lyrical lame but pleasant Mine for Me... > Read more

VARIOUS ARTISTS. ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK, CONSIDERED (early 1970s?): Travels in the time tunnel

6 May 2024  |  1 min read

Among the many good things about what Bob Seger called “old time rock and roll” is that you get more of it for less. Like on this album which boasts “24 terrific rock'n'roll tracks” and cost just $5 secondhand. That's about 20 cents a song. But this cobbled together collection for New Zealand's Music for Leisure Ltd is bizarre in what it considers rock'n'roll and... > Read more

THE BEATLES. BEATLES FOR SALE, CONSIDERED (1964): Cashing in and the start of cashing out

29 Apr 2024  |  3 min read

With a cynical title and a great cover photo, the Beatles' fourth album in 20 months was a mixed bag of excellent and different new songs alongside filler pulled from the back-pocket of their Hamburg trousers. It was a shameless cash-in for the Christmas market – recorded in October but not released until early December – and it was clear the songwriting team of Lennon-McCartney... > Read more

No Reply

CURVED AIR. PHANTASMAGORIA, CONSIDERED (1972): And now to the matter at hand

22 Apr 2024  |  3 min read

While there are plenty of songs about sex, there are fewer specifically about masturbation. We can readily think of Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark, Vanessa Daou's Long Tunnel of Wanting You and the Divinyls' I Touch Myself. But, with a few exceptions, songs about that touchy subject are often coded. Welcome then to a band who just got straight down to the job in hand: Britain's... > Read more

Over and Above