(Article can be seen here)

Today I’m going to review the new Paul McCartney album, Kisses on the Bottom (I’ll explain later), which was released today (this review was written on 7th February).

The album is McCartney’s 15^th studio solo album. The idea behind the album was for McCartney to revisit songs from his youth. The album is mainly covers of old jazz songs, McCartney only contributing vocals for most songs, enlisting the help of Diana Krall and jazz producer Tommy LiPuma. The album was published by McCartney’s own company, MPL.

Album in Depth: Ex-Beatles Debut Month: McCartney by Paul McCartney

Hi, I’m JotaKa. I’m a rocker by birth and grew listening to rock discs and long plays by the dozen. Let’s get this on with, this is Ex-Beatle Debut Month!

#1 – Sentimental Journey by Ringo Starr

#2 – McCartney by Paul McCartney

Album in Depth: Ex-Beatle Debut Month: Sentimental Journey by Ringo Starr

Hi, I’m JotaKa. I’m a rocker by birth and grew listening to rock discs and long plays by the dozen. Guess what month it is? It’s October, so obviously enough, this will be the first theme month (or at least season) of the Album in Depth series, this is the Ex-Beatle Debut Month!

So, I’ll take the four solo albums that were released by each of the Beatles right after the break up and review them one by one. The four albums are as follow:

#1 – Sentimental Journey by Ringo Starr

Album in Depth: Motorcade of Generosity

Hi, I’m JotaKa. I’m a rocker by birth and grew listening to rock discs and long plays by the dozen. Again, I’m going into progressive music too deep and complaining about minor things. Rereading my last two blogs, I can see I was almost only bitching about how some of the best prog rock ever wasn’t exactly perfect and it had minor flaws: after all, I believe it’s the genre I know the best. So, this time I’ll try to venture a little bit outside of the prog… well, at least outside of the big ass solos, but not so much afar from the creativity and creepy moments.

This week will be Motorcade of Generosity by Cake. I got to know Cake because, once again, a girl I was into liked it a lot. And when I found out she was a lesbian, and is now in England married to another one (if you are reading this, Julia, congratulations, so happy for you), the only thing that remained was this album on my shelf. So, what is Cake beside a delicious dessert and how grammatically wrong is the word “Motorcade”? A little background is required.

The year is 1994. The Lion King sees the silver screen and Forrest Gump gets the Oscar for best picture. Green Day releases Dookie and Kurt Cobain dies at the mythical age of 27. Knuckles shows himself in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Darkstalkers, one of the best fighting games ever, sees the arcades. The confusing, even though somewhat interesting, Clone Saga starts in the Spider-Man comics and the comic characters mourn the passing of the great Jack Kirby.

Album in Depth: Leftoverture by Kansas

Hi, I’m JotaKa. I’m a rocker by birth and grew listening to rock discs and long plays by the dozen. After a filler week, let’s get on with it. The next album was, as Agents of Fortune, an album that got through my radar in other medias (I believe it was some movie) and, after some look around, I got it. Kansas for me was always one of those bands that have only two good music: Carry On Wayward Son and Dust in the Wind. And looking back at my other reviews, it seems like 1976 was the year of those bands: we also had Blue Öyster Cult “Don’t Fear The Reaper” and Eagles’ “Hotel California”. But I’m getting a little over myself, and have to ask: Who is Kansas and why the band is named that way? A little background is required.

The year is 1976. The Song Remains the Same, the Led Zeppelin movie, is released, and sadly, Dame Agatha Christie dies from natural causes. Betamax is released in the US and VHS is introduced to Japan. SNL promises 3 grand to the Beatles for an immediate reconciliation, but they dismiss it because of tiredness and Deep Purple announces I believe the first of a lot of break ups.

Kansas was having a stroke of bad luck. After some tours, it had some fans, but it wasn’t a large group of ‘em. And after three failed albums with not one managing to make a hit single, the manager was pressuring them. And really, I can’t blame him: the three first albums aren’t exactly master pieces. And to make matters worse: the major song writer, Steve Walsh the singer, was experiencing Writers block. So, what could the band do? The path to oblivion was almost completely traced before them. So, they give the job of major song writer to Kerry Livgren, the guitarist, to do something about it. And boy, he did. He wrote the eight songs, although the last one was written by everybody in the band. Walsh co-wrote only four songs, and to be completely honest, that shows. I like to think that the problem before was the density of the albums, which were too much prog to go to a major audience: heck, even to prog for me, and I like some pretty prog stuff.

Album in Depth: Agents of Fortune by Blue Öyster Cult

Hi, I’m JotaKa. I’m a rocker by birth and grew listening to rock discs and long plays by the dozen. When I decided on my schedule, I realized I was mostly doing albums that I enjoyed, so I jammed a lot of albums that I didn’t fancy: Sublime, Justin Bieber’s and St. Elsewhere. But, of course, I mixed some other albums that I somewhat enjoy. This is one of them.

Blue Öyster Cult is not famous here where I live, so, I grew up with classic like Floyd, Zeppelin, The Who, Queen, The Beatles, Jethro Tull… but Blue Öyster Cult was one of the large array of what I had to pursue by my own. Of course, as most people did, I got acknowledge of the band because of that segment on SNL: the famous “More Cowbell” sketch. I would later discover that the sketch lies to us with the whole “THE Bruce Dickinson” twice: one because it isn’t THE Bruce Dickinson (the singer) and the producer of the track isn’t even THE Bruce Dickinson (Producer). Oh, and Gene Frenkle, the cowbell player, doesn’t exist at all. But I’m really getting myself ahead. So… what is Blue Öyster Cult (BÖC for short)? A little background is required:

The year is 1976. Eagles would release there most famous album, Hotel California, later on, and AC/DC gets its International Debut with High Voltage. Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man is published (though I can’t really say it would be a fair fight: come on, Spider-man is awesome, but a flick of Superman’s finger would kill him) and Bullseye fights the Daredevil for the first time. The Twelve Tasks of Asterix is released in movie theatres being the first movie of the Asterix franchise to be completely original and Taxi Driver hits the big screen.

Album in Depth: God Shuffled His Feet by the Crash Test Dummies

Hi, I’m JotaKa. I’m a rocker by birth and grew listening to rock discs and long plays by the dozen. So, I’m not one to banner my religion (or lack thereof) out loud because, well, it brought me more problems than solutions and when it comes the time to say “I’m an atheist”, I heard more shit than I would if I just said “I’m whatever the hell you want me to be.” And, well, one of the profits that came to my lap was the acknowledgment of some bands that name themselves (or the fans label them this way) “folk” or “atheist”. Crash Test Dummies was one of these that were appointed to me, though looking back, even though they made some jokes over religion as whole, it’s not exactly atheist. Anyways, this album, although a hit back in 1994, has become more and more of an obscure hit, mostly because of criticism on their major hit and, even though they release new material to this day, they left mainstream fame back then. But who are Crash Test Dummies and why a name so strange is a folk band? A little background is required.

The year is 1994. NAFTA is established. Two movies that moved my childhood (Lion King and The Mask) are released and are among the 10 top grossing films. Wario Woods, the last licensed Nintendo game to be released, goes to the stores and you could bash mummies and zombies with the release of Darkstalkers on the arcade. Kurt Cobain’s body is found and Dookie is released making punk profitable again (maybe the two facts are connected, I don’t know).

Crash Test Dummies, a folk/alternative rock band from Canada, did release an album three years after (The Ghost That Haunts Me), and gained some popularity, but it wasn’t an international fame or anything like that. With a hit “Superman’s Song”, a song really about Superman, Brad Roberts became a mark of the band with his baritone voice and clever lyrics, alongside his brother Dan Roberts on the bass, Ellen Reid on back-vocals and keyboard and Benjamin Darvell on the mandolin and harmonica. The only personnel change from one album to another was Michael Dorge replacing Steve Berlin on the percussion. With the release of the album “God Shuffled His Feet”, their major single hit “Mmm mmm mmm mmm” (not joshing, that’s the exact name of the song) hit the shelves, even though some people claiming it to be uninspired and boring. Together with some other singles, the ’94 album made the band more recognizable and achieved somewhat of a worldwide fame.

Lenny Kravitz is a musician that most of you already know. I've known about him for long, but I've never truly come across his music until now that I've got my hands on his 1989 debut album Let Love Rule. Since Kravitz is an artist who I've had no positive nor negative feelings for until this month, I felt intrigued to review this album from a rather neutral point of view.

However, some background on the man would not certainly hurt to be included, so a little summary of a quick Wikipedia search might help here.

Kravitz, born May 26, 1964 in New York City, is a singer-songwriter who's known for incorporating elements of various oldschool genres of rock, R&B, funk, reggae and other soft music genres. He's also an multi-instrumentalist, often playing all or most of the instruments on his albums by himself. He has also been a highly successful musician, especially in 90's and early 20's, having won the Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance four times in a row 1999-2002 and all but one of his 8 released studio albums have gone platinum.

If nothing else, that might suggest that Kravitz is a very talented singer, even though Let Love Rule predates those awards by a decade.

Did he get it right here? He really did and he sounds great, very much like Stevie Wonder. Seriously, it's almost eerie how closely his voice resembles Stevie's on some tracks (atleast to my ears, rather untrained in the art of listening to soul and R&B), though he manages to squeeze a bit more intensity and power to his vocals than old Stevie. The overall sound of the album reminded me of Wonder as well, but only if he made a funk rock album. Kravitz's blending of the various bluesy musical genres comes apparent to the listener soon, and he does it rather well. It's as much a rock album as a soul one. Kravitz's vocals glide over the funky guitar riffs and though his voice goes everywhere between from a whisper to a yowl during the album, you can hear the passion he has for what he does on every line.

If you've ever heard a Pink Floyd album, you know their usual style. Experimental, but not too distracting from the music use of sound effects, challenging and insightful lyrics set against the sonic textures provided by the trio of keyboards, drums and bass and electric guitars and occasional blues-influenced guitar solo or a jazzy keyboard improvisation.

Now forget about all that. Well, apart from the improvisations. These are plentiful on this album, and... well, they aren't up to par with 'Any Colour You Like' from The Dark Side of the Moon or the first few parts of 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond'. No: these are self-indulgent, not-quite-sure-what-to-do kinds of improvisations that you want to be gone as soon as it is possible. It's a bit like if King Crimson's infamous coda of 'Moonchild' ran for a length of a full LP. Thankfully, not two LPs, 'cause even though the the whole Ummagumma is compromised of two vinyl records, the first one is one of the greatest live albums of all time. I'm not kidding: Pink Floyd at that time were capable of doing amazing things in front of live audience, but when they have been brought back to the recording studio, it seems they transformed into an altogether different creature - a one that is don't know what to do and not sure where it is heading, as it is best demonstrated on the second part of the album, which is (you guessed it!) today's topic.

After committing Ummagumma. From left to right: Richard Wright saying to himself "What was I thinking?", David Gilmour being absolutely cross about the quality of the newest release, Roger Waters having a mild case of a Troll Face and Nick Mason... well, he's a drummer, so he doesn't give a crap.

Ever wonder what lies beyong the Rick Roll?

Band I never heard about released album with a complicated name. What too expect? Awesomeness, none the less!

Halloween article reviewing Helloween!

Ever wanted to know what's beyond the track Hotel California? Check the album... in depth! *snickers*

Tea for the Tillerman? What the hell is a Tillerman?

Album in Depth: The Final Frontier by Iron Maiden

Hi, I’m JotaKa. I’m a rocker by birth and grew listening to rock discs and long plays by the dozen. In the midst of the year, I had an idea of a site that would host many album reviews by me and a group of people that not only would try to cover the most albums possible but review the same albums, and thus creating multiple opinions under the same subject so that the reader could identify with an specific author with an similar preference and heed to find his interest. Or, let’s see, if someone else comes along, someone that loved the Mothers of Invention “Freak Out!” that I hated, and wants to make the album justice in his way, he could by posting a review of his opinion. My main idea was to base this site on conflicting opinions over the same subject. So, for that need, I need help from people that have different opinion than me. And for that, my friend Battousai will be helping me around.

The thing is he liked the idea and went right away into making the review of this album: The Final Frontier, by Iron Maiden. He is a huge fan of the Maiden, and I… well… I‘m not. I really liked the album “Killers” of 1981 and since that, Iron Maiden got much more heavy metal and chanced vocals from the not so good Paul Di’Anno to the believed to be star of the Iron Maiden best formation, Bruce Dickinson. I don’t like Bruce Dickinson singing in any projects and I loathed Tyranny of Souls.

What the hell is Elf? Album in Depth will tel you! Time to hit a not so classic.

After some commentary on my last review, I move on.

Whoo, virtual band with cool artwork! Demon Days in depth.

"What exactly is a concept album?" is a question that always comes to me.

In depth review of Inhuman Rampage, by DragonForce, including a track by track review.

Analyzing in great detail the Frank Zappa debut, "Freak Out!".

Ayreon's "Human Equation" in detail.