Classic Rock Bottom

 

Well, all things must end I suppose. And with this post I end my mini-run of 70's albums.

 

BY REQUEST, I finish up the same way I started with Hall & Oates' 1978 release, "Along The Red Ledge".

 

This was the first H&O album I ever bought, but it was about 7 years after it was released. Why? Well, I read something in a magazine or book that said this album rocked. At this point in my life I thought H&O sucked because they were wimp rock. But to have H&O rock? This was something I just had to see for myself.

 

To a point the article or review was correct. It DOES rock, but on side two. Side one is where the blue-eyes soul resides. What was interesting is that I even dug side one, yet couldn't admit it to my metal brethren for fear of being shunned from that community.  

 

On a sidenote, one of my metal friends really liked The Culture Club. I thought he was an idiot since The Culture Club were as far away as metal as you could get. His reasoning was that Boy George had a great voice. With that in mind, I paid more attention to The Culture Club and it's true, he does have a great voice. And hell, the music ain't that bad either. Take THAT, Scott!

 

Two albums later, H&O hit it big with "Voices" (which I now can enjoy). Preceding that album was the vastly underrated "X-Static", something we might get to somewhere down the road. 

 

 

Along The Red Ledge

1. It's A Laugh

2. Melody For A Memory

3. The Last Time

4. I Don't Wanna Lose You

5. Have I Been Away Too Long

6. Alley Katz

7. Don't Blame It On Love

8. Serious Music

9. Pleasure Beach

10. August Day    

 

 

Availability:OOP, but prices start around $6.

 

 

 

 

 

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Great album, one I bought because I heard "It's a Laugh" on the radio. Ended up a fan of H&O up until they released Big Bang Bong Boom or whatever that was... Hoping for a remastered edition someday, and then I will buy it again. More to come on this one....

The version I have is remastered.

Serious? I need to check again...

Yeah, it's from Friday Music and it's the OOP version which is actually the only version that made it to CD as far as I know.

Too bad this went by all week with little notice!  Great album...

Heres some quick highlights you shouldn't miss, at least for me...

  • ITS A LAUGH:  This song is the reason I bought this album, its a great moment in Pop music history, at least for me. "And the funny thing is everyone thought we were forever", hahaha...  How many women could I say that about (The answer is A hell-uva-lot - your just gonna have to trust me on that )
  • MELODY FOR A MEMORY:  Nice build of intensity to this track, its just keeps getting stronger and then it ends with nice geetars.
  • SIDE 2:  You can start with Alley Katz, the only misstep is Pleasure Beach (at least for me)

Theres not much of a decision here for me, when I run across the remaster its mine!

Jon, I listened & liked it! Just haven't had time to work up a review yet. Great post!

.

I listened earlier in the week at work as well.  But it was very distracted, therefore I'm gonna find some time to listen again before I give an opinion.

Okay, I'm saying slightly above average for this.  This is one I picked up on vinly recently.  When I tried to transfer it to mp3 for my iPod, I discovered it had a scratch and I had about 10 minutes of the same thing over and over.  So that's now in my scratched record pile, but hey, it was a dollar.

 

I love the guitar work for this album.  I'd like to hear more.  Was G.E. Smith or whatever his name is the guitar player here?  The first two tracks were really good.    Track 4 sounded like Philadelphia Freedom when it started.  Track 5 was weird.  I liked it at first, but as it went on, Hall's vocals really irritated my ears...badly.  The first couple of songs on the second half were definitely harder and more rockin' than typical H&O material.

 

Nice post, something I've been wanting to hear.  Now that I have, I'm okay with not owning it, but it's not bad.

Caleb Quaye plays geetar on this album. There's also guest appearances from Rick Nielson, Steve Lukather, Steve Porcaro, Robert Fripp Todd Rundgren and George Harrison. 

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(11/30/1945-9/7/2010)

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