Downtown Venus (P.M. Dawn) (LP 3512 - 3515)

P.M. Dawn  Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: the Utopian Experience (CD, Gee Street Records, 1991) ****  

P.M. Dawn  The Bliss Album..? Vibrations of Love and Anger and the Ponderance of Life and Existence (CD, Gee Street Records, 1993) ****  

P.M. Dawn  Jesus Wept (Vinyl, Gee Street Records, 1995) *****  

P.M. Dawn  Dearest Christian, I'm So Very Sorry for Bringing You Here. Love, Dad (CD, Gee Street Records, 1998) ****

Genre: RnB, pop, hip hop

Places I remember: The Warehouse, JB Hi Fi, Amoeba Records, HMV

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Set Adrift on Memory Bliss (Of the Heart...)

Gear costume: The 9:45 Wake Up Dream (on YouTube); Downtown Venus (both from Jesus Wept)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: P.M. Dawn is basically a duo comprised of two very talented brothers - Attrell Cordes (a.k.a. Prince Be, a.k.a. Prince Be the Nocturnal) and Jarrett Cordes (a.k.a. Eternal or DJ Minutemix).

Of the Heart... was their debut album and it was an instant success thanks to Set Adrift on Memory Bliss. It was a revelation when I first heard that song at the start of the nineties. 

Then I bought the album and played it on repeat. Shock horror probe: maybe I'd even embrace hip hop? But Of the Heart's new age spirituality and philosophical introspection with beats was out of step with the rest of the hard street rap that prevailed - which is exactly why I loved it in the first place.

The Bliss Album...successfully continued the pop-rap sounds from the debut album. The brothers' vocals are superb - smooth, lush, and catchy, while the music continues to be a dreamy melodic soul/RnB/ hip hop cross over. Their version of Norwegian Wood reveals the source of their inspiration for this sound.

Prince Be's raps and Eternal's vocals create a unique multi-layered P.M. Dawn sound that continues to be hugely appealing 25 years later. 

Their third album, Jesus Wept, is my favourite of theirs, and has been hard to find. I have had a cassette version for years but have been keen to find a CD of it as well. Even better, I was thrilled to find a vinyl copy in Los Angeles' Amoeba Music while visiting for Samantha and Andrew's wedding. The cover sticker says that it's a special Record Store Day release - the first time on vinyl! Yahoo!! It sounds brilliant!

Although sales had steadily declined from the earlier albums, fourth album, Dearest Christian...continued their musically successful formula: the amalgamation of samples with Prince Be's songs.  

Where do they all belong? There's a Best Of out there which sounds interesting. Aside from that I have no interest in the current version of the band. Prince Be sadly passed away in 2016 and Eternal left the band after his brother's health declined earlier in the 2000's.

In the mood (Robert Plant) (LP 3510 - 3511)

Robert Plant  Pictures at Eleven (Vinyl, Swan Song Records, 1982) ***  

Robert Plant  The Principle of Moments (Vinyl, Atlantic Records, 1983) *** 

Genre: Rock

Places I remember: Marbecks Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Big Log (Principle of Moments)

Gear costume: In The Mood (Principle of Moments)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: I bought these in the early eighties out of a sense of loyalty to Led Zeppelin.

Pictures at Eleven was his debut solo album and it appeared on Swan Song Records. I was flirting with the thought of buying albums on that label for a while, but pretty quickly I abandoned the idea. 

The Principle of Moments followed quickly after and is in the same style. It was a solid start to his solo years. In both albums, he takes on a different sound to Led Zep with success, but it just didn't resonate with me in the same way. I wasn't a teenager anymore, it was the early eighties, and I was starting my teaching career. 

Where do they all belong? That's it for solo Robert Plant. I tried, but I struggle to think of him outside of the band of my youth.

I'll fly away (Plainsong) (LP 3509)

Plainsong  In Search of Amelia Earhart (Vinyl, Elektra Records, 1972) ****  

Genre: Country rock, folk rock

Places I remember: Record Fair

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Louise

Gear costume: For The Second Time 

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: I have mentioned this album by Plainsong in passing while writing about Ian Matthews' solo albums. In Search of Amelia Earhart was their only album, as the band split up the same year (a second Plainsong album was recorded but never released, to my knowledge).

It's not really a concept album, as most of the songs are concerned with other matters, but it does tackle a bizarre unproved theory about Amelia crash landing and being captured by Japanese troops. 

It is another great album by Ian (he writes most of the songs and, as per usual, sings like a dream). His fellow Plainsong members (including Andy Roberts from The Liverpool Scene) contribute some superior country rock. 

Where do they all belong? A weird one - but a fantastic addition to the collection.

I can't be your hero today (Jimmy Buffett) (LP 3508)

Jimmy Buffett  Buried Treasure Volume 1 (Record, Mailboat Records, 2017) ***

Genre: Folk, pop 

Places I remember: Vinyl Countdown

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Don't Bring Me Candy

Gear costume: Abandoned on Tuesday 

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: I went into this one blindly, not realising that Jimmy was going to be acting as a DJ for each track. I ended up skipping the introductions and just listened to the newly (for 2017) discovered songs from 1969.

He says that he was mimicking Gordon Lightfoot at the time, and you can certainly hear that but what the songs reveal is a young singer songwriter beginning the voyage of discovery. So, as long as you keep that in mind, it's a pleasurable cruise through his back pages.

If you are looking for the laid-back sea dog you will be disappointed. 

Where do they all belong? Not sure I'll jump aboard for any further volumes.

Paintbox (Pink Floyd) (LP 3504 - 3507)

Pink Floyd  The Early Years 1967 - 1972 (CD, Pink Floyd Records, 2016) ****  

Pink Floyd  Relics (CD, Harvest Records, 1971) ****  

Pink Floyd  A Collection of Great Dance Songs (Vinyl, Harvest Records, 1981) *** 

Pink Floyd  Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd (Vinyl and CD, EMI Records, 2001) ****

Genre: Prog rock, Psychedelic rock

Places I remember: Fopp, HMV, JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Money 

Gear costume: Echoes 

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: The early compilations from Pink Floyd are interesting in that they help flesh out the Pink Floyd picture.

The Early Years 1967 - 1972 is a two disc set of cherry picked highlights from a box set (The Early Years 1965 - 1972). It clearly shows the development from the Syd Barrett years to the pre Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd. As AllMusic points out: Certainly, the details of the box are missed, but on its own terms, The Early Years 1967-1972 is absorbing: it illustrates how Pink Floyd became Pink Floyd.

Relics is also a fantastic compilation of those early years. It focuses on early singles, B-sides, album tracks and one unreleased song, Biding My Time. The compilation contains material from the first three albums: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, A Saucerful of Secrets and More.

A Collection of Great Dance Songs contains alternative mixes of Shine On You Crazy Diamond (with various 'parts' added together) and Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2).

Money was entirely re-recorded, as Capitol Records refused to license the track to Columbia/CBS Records. David Gilmour re-recorded the track himself, playing most of the instruments. Dick Parry reprised his saxophone parts on the track. I prefer the original.

Echoes is the final album on my list. It has the advantage of spanning their entire career from the start to The Division Bell (although it came out before The Endless River). Loads to pick from then, and obviously it will miss something along the way which fans think should be included. For instance, somehow it leaves out Fat Old Sun!!

The sequencing of the tracks non-chronologically, in an effort to place more emphasis on the individual songs as opposed to the era they're from, works for me as the juxtiposition of tracks brings out a freshness.

The whole art package in vinyl form is brilliant too. Storm Thorgerson did the Echoes art which features recursive windows in multiple regressions as a nod to his own cover for 1969's Ummagumma, and the objects on each landscape refer to the Pink Floyd discography. It's worth buying the vinyl for that alone!

Where do they all belong? And that completes the Pink Floyd-a-thon. Next up in the P's: Plainsong.

Run like hell (Pink Floyd) (LP 3498 - 3503)

Pink Floyd   A Momentary Lapse of Reason (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1987) ****  

Pink Floyd   Delicate Sound of Thunder (CD, CBS Records, 1988) ***  

Pink Floyd   Live at Knebworth 1990 (CD, Pink Floyd Records, 2021) *** 

Pink Floyd   The Division Bell (CD, EMI Records, 1994) *****

Pink Floyd   Pulse (CD, EMI Records, 1995) *** 

Pink Floyd   The Endless River (CD, Columbia Records, 2014) *** 

Genre: Prog rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records, St Luke's Mall's music shop, JB Hi-Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Wearing The Inside Out (The Division Bell)

Gear costume: High Hopes (The Division Bell)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: It was something of a surprise to hear and see Learning To Fly on Radio With Pictures in the mid-eighties. I'd sort of forgotten about Pink Floyd by that stage. 

But then, suddenly, - David Gilmour's Pink Floyd (with Richard Wright and Nick Mason also on board) were everywhere! Including a show at Western Springs in Auckland. 

The album was a great experience; being the type of Pink Floyd sound that I loved. I played it a lot at home and on my Sony Walkman (most memorably while on a school camp in the Nelson mountain region as I reflected on what to say to the students after we found they'd brought some drugs to the camp - fun times).

Jacky and I went to that Western Springs concert along with thousands of others and enjoyed the live Pink Floyd spectacle - the floating pig was impressive, so buying the live album, Delicate Sound of Thunder was a no-brainer. 

It's a good selection of songs from across their career, and the elongated Money and Us and Them are good to have. Most, if not all of the other songs are faithful renditions of the songs from the studio albums. Which I'm fine with, btw. 

Live at Knebworth 1990, which was released in 2021, is from that same era of Pink Floyd. All of the songs on the album are also on Delicate Sound of Thunder, except for The Great Gig in the Sky. This means, it's more of historical value and one for the collectors if you're feeling generous and a cynical move to rinse fans/collectors if you're not (the versions of Money etc are identical to those on Delicate Sound of Thunder). Nice cover though.

After another lull - seven years this time, the Gilmour led Pink Floyd returned with The Division Bell. A real five-star classic, in my opinion. The production is superb, it feels like a real band again and it's a return to pre Dark Side dynamics - a period of Pink Floyd that I love. 

Aside from his posthumous appearance on The Endless River, Rick Wright's singing and music for Wearing the Inside Out would be his final appearance on a Pink Floyd album and it's a fitting one (Dick Parry even reappears after a 20 year absence). 

The lyrics (by fellow progger Anthony Moore) are apposite for the time and now ironically - I'm creeping back to life/ My nervous system all awry/ I'm wearing the inside out. Rick sings it superbly. R.I.P. Richard Wright.

Pulse, their third live album, was released the next year and followed the studio record - The Division Bell. It was notable for a full live rendition of Dark Side of the Moon - complete with all the requisite sound effects. It's faithful to the studio album, so, again - I'm not really sure what the point was.

The Endless River is a personal tribute to Rick Wright, It has mostly instrumental music produced during The Division Bell recordings. It's quite ambient in nature - which is fitting. It's not an album I return to often though. Out of the albums included on this list, that honour goes to The Division Bell.

Where do they all belong? Pink Floyd compilations are next up.

Wish you were here (Pink Floyd) (LP 3490 - 3497)

Pink Floyd  Atom Heart Mother (CD, Harvest Records, 1970) ***  

Pink Floyd  Meddle (Vinyl, Harvest Records, 1971) *****  

Pink Floyd  Live at Pompeii (DVD, Universal Studios, 1971/2003) **** 

Pink Floyd  Obscured By Clouds (Vinyl, Harvest Records, 1972) ***  

Pink Floyd  The Dark Side of the Moon (Vinyl and CD, Harvest Records, 1973) *****  

Pink Floyd  Wish You Were Here (Vinyl, Harvest Records, 1975) *****  

Pink Floyd  Animals (CD, Harvest Records, 1977) ****  

Pink Floyd  The Wall (CD, Harvest Records, 1979) *** 

Genre: Prog rock

Places I remember: Fives, Chaldon Books and Records, JB Hi-Fi, George Courts on K Rd, DJ Records, Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Fat Old Sun (Atom Heart Mother)

Gear costume: Us and Them (The Dark Side of the Wall), Wish You Were Here  

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: In hindsight the Pink Floyd albums of the early seventies were gearing up for Dark Side of the Moon, but in real time (the way these blogposts roll) the band was continuing with their idiosyncratic experiments.

Atom Heart Mother has a side long orchestrally inclined title song and then a side of solo songs like Ummagumma. The final track (Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast) is part of a rich tradition by this point. I like the album - and not just because of the majestic David Gilmour highlight - Fat Old Sun.

Meddle is their first post Syd album to feature a uniform tone and some brilliant songs. Echoes takes up a whole side and has become a stone-cold classic in their oeuvre. 

The album cover is again, brilliant. Sound and visuals were important to the Pink Floyd experience right from the start. The film showing them in the studio and in concert from 1966/67 (Tonite let's all make love in London) shows the psychedelic light show and slide projection used to accompany the music. They continued the music/visual enhancement tradition throughout their career.

So, it's appropriate to also include the DVD Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii in this countdown. It begins and ends with Echoes. I love the way Rick Wright and David Gilmour's vocals blend together. It's great having the visual aspect to augment the song. 

Visuals and songs combine again for Obscured By Clouds as it doubles as a soundtrack to La Valee - another film by Barbet Schroeder. It's a nice interlude between Meddle and their next big album (that's an understatement, as The Dark Side of the Moon became one of the biggest albums of all time). 

I don't really hear too many similarities between those three albums. Obscured by Clouds is like More - a song centric collection of sounds - often acoustic in nature.

I bought The Dark Side of the Moon on the day of release in New Zealand (so it's a rare NZ first pressing) and I can remember sitting in mum's car looking at the cover and the posters. I've lost count how many times I've listened to it but it remains a wonderful piece of music with some amazing songs. It's now gone beyond being a music album, and become a cultural artifact in the years since its release. 

 

It took a few years to produce a follow up but kudos to the band - when they did, it was another classic.

Wish You Were Here contains the homage to Syd - Shine On You Crazy Diamond, to bookend the album. For a bunch of guys who are not the best communicators (check out the interviews on Live at Pompeii), they deliver their love for Syd via this song superbly. Unexpectedly, there is a real warmth and spirit of comradery communicated on the album via music.

Elsewhere, Roger Waters' trademark cynicism surfaces (Have A Cigar, Welcome to the Machine), but at this stage, it's still dressed up in some catchy songs, so he's not yet an insufferable bore on such things (I'm not a fan of his solo work).

Animals came as something of a surprise, in that it's loosely based on Orwell's Animal Farm. It ends up an interesting album but Roger Waters' bleak view of the world means there is a new layer of darkness and bitterness that wasn't present to this extent previously. 

Still - the sheep end up beating the dogs (somehow), and, even though there's not much for Rick to do, the album is full of David Gilmour's terrific penetrating guitar sounds, so all is not (yet) lost! He sounds angry! Maybe the punk movement did have an effect on this album after all.

Which brings us to The Wall - their final album of the seventies. I've never been a fan! 

When it came out I was working part time at Marbecks Records in The Queen's Arcade. Roger Marbeck was running the pop store and he bought a ton of this album and consequently played it a lot in the store. It sold tons too, so he wasn't wrong, but I got so sick of hearing the first side.

It's definitely Roger's baby and as such he sings in a snidey way that I'm not that keen on. It was at this point that I started gravitating to David Gilmour's PF, rather than Roger's PF. Hence, I bought and quickly sold The Final Cut.

Where do they all belong? So, next up is the eighties Pink Floyd led by David Gilmour.