Just the fact that Sparks released ‘Kimono My House’ and ‘Propaganda’ in this year makes it a 10.
Then you’ve got all this…
Gene Clark - No Other
Bowie - Diamond Dogs
T-Rex - Tanx
Roxy Music - Country Life
Cockney Rebel - The Psychomodo
Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain
John Cale - Fear
David Essex - S/T
Neil Young - On The Beach
Stevie Wonder - FFF
Kraftwerk - Autobahn
Tangerine Dream - Pheadra
Can - Soon Over Babaluma
Cluster - Zuckerzeit
Peter Hammill - In Camera
Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic
then singles wise…
Dolly Parton - Jolene
Abba - Waterloo
George McCrae - Rock Your Baby
Alvin Stardust - My Coo Coo Choo
Hot Chocolate - Emma
too much to list but a straight 10. gonna have to think long and hard about nominations.
This is a year in which I really don’t have a lot of knowledge, barely need two hands to count the albums I’ve heard in full. I’ll need a few days of research before I nominate anything!
Album Nomination: Curtis Mayfield - Sweet Exorcist
Any year Curtis releases an album, I’m nominating it. I feel as if a lot of people don’t venture beyond Superfly, but they should because he has some superb albums after this.
Song Nomination: Average White Band - Pick Up The Pieces
5 white Scottish dude making one of the funkiest songs of all time. I remember watching a Soul doc a couple of years ago and someone mentioned how they’d see them at gigs and have no idea it was a bunch of Scottish dudes and how they assumed the name was ironic. Such a good song.
Deeply unpopular prog alert: ‘The Gates of Delirium’ studio version here suffers from a murky mix in the ‘battle’ section but the live version on the ‘Yesshows’ album is absofuckinglutely stonking. ‘Sound Chaser’ is where Patrick Moraz got to run riot on keyboard textures and solos in 13/8 tempos. ‘To Be Over’ is just subline and features some of Steve Howe’s best guitar work.
One of my all-time favourite artists and albums. That incredible voice. Such a beautiful album crossing soul, pop and rock. Stevie Wonder on production duties (under the pseudonym El Toro Negro to avoid any Motown contractual issues!)
I agree about there being some real gems post-‘Curtis’ (75’s ‘There’s no place like America Today’ is my fave Curtis album) but got to admit this one has slipped by me. I’ll give it a spin later today.
God I’ve probably heard that a thousand times - must have been used in so many films and tv shows - but never knew who it was by. For some reason I thought it was Ian Dury, something about the music just makes me think his vocals will kick in at some point.