Bobby “Blue” Bland has his place in the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was honored in 1997 with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, yet never really seemed to get the same mainstream recognition as the likes of Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye [2], and B.B. King.

“One month from the day I first met you, your promises have proved to be untrue. So, step by step I’ve been a fool, now I’m just two steps from the blues”

This is how Bobby introduces us to his album; accompanied by loud horns, piano and drums. It is also with this song that he sets the general dark tone of the whole album. The title track is definitely my favorite song of the album and probably one of my favorite songs of all-time. As early as the first minute you can already see why Bobby is considered a legend today. It totally blew my mind to hear a man sing with such a raw passion and emotion. I guess this what Blues is all about after all. Emotion, is such an important part of music, and especially an important part of Blues. Yet, as early as his first real album, Bobby puts as much emotion in his songs than an experienced veteran would and probably even more. His powerful vocals tell us the story of a man whose suffered the worst aspects of love and are some of the most beautiful things I ever had the chance to hear.

The music, although heavily overshadowed by Bobby’s vocals that grab most, if not all of our attention, is also really great and entertaining. Produced by Joe Scott, the whole album follows a really dark, heart-wrenching theme in which piano, drums and horns are reigning to make this album a true Blues masterpiece. The arrangements are brilliantly done and match Bobby’s style perfectly on every single song even on the saddest to the more cheerful.

Bobby became a much more experienced musician afterward and mastered Blues like no other in a matter of years and finally became the legend he is today, but he never really matched his raw passion that was on his first real solo album. Perhaps it was because it was new or because of his inexperience, “Two Steps from the Blues” still remains Bobby’s magnum opus and one of the finest work in Blues history.

by Jean-Guy

This band is called The Microphones, but the only member is in fact Phil Elverum. After the poppy “It Was Hot We Stayed in the Water”, the ‘band’ decided to do a follow-up to the album’s center piece “The Glow” in the format of an album. So in 2001 was released “The Glow Pt. 2″, an hour long record with a big elephant on the cover. But behind this elephant lies beautiful lo-fi experimental music and some of the finest music in the last decade.

“The Glow Pt. 2″ is a trip, the kind of album that takes you into it’s universe with the first song and bring you through a trip and a plethora of emotions. This album pretty much sums it all, having some really calm acoustic-ridden songs to more stressful ones with heavy drums; yet most of the album keeps a certain vibe, thanks to Phil Elverum’s vocals. Throughout the whole album, Phil’s voice guides us in a huge trip through a beautiful and peaceful world. To help those vocals, he’s also a great songwriter and he shows it especially on my favorite song from the album, the title track. “The Glow Pt. 2″ steals the show early (being the second song) and although most of the following songs are different and really good songs, none seems to bring the same intensity of emotion as this one, with his great lyrics, emotional vocals and beautiful production.

The production is one of the album’s strongest aspect. Having a couple instrumental songs to make a transition between certain songs or build up the mood before another song, the production is just as interesting (or sometime even more) than Phil’s vocals. “The Glow Pt. 2″ is one of this decade’s essential, whether is because of it’s musical complexity, moving vocals, great lyrics or simply because of how good the music is. This album is considered by many to be the group’s best and even if I never heard all of them I would totally understand that Phil probably never released an album as great as this one simply because of how good it is.

by Jean-Guy

The major-label debut album of what would later become one of the most acclaimed hip-hop groups of all-time. After their independently released first album which got somewhat mixed reviews among critics, the band decided to come back with a follow-up that will totally outshine it’s predecessor. “Do You Want More?!!!??! ” picks up where their first album, “Organix” left off, by keeping a similar sound and even following the tracklist as if the two albums were in fact, just one 33 song album. Even with what I just said, “Do You Want More?!!!??!” is still a full album and you don’t absolutely have to listen to “Organix” before listening to it.

We have here a young version of The Roots, before “Illadelph Halflife”, before “Things Fall Apart”, before “Phrenoloy” and before Jimmy Fallon. When The Roots were still a fresh new group with a relatively small (but quickly growing) fan base that just got picked up by a major label with a heavily jazz influenced sound. Black Thought was at the time of recording about 22 years-old and you can clearly see a difference between the relatively inexperienced rapper we have here and what is today one of hip-hop’s finest MC’s. Although he’s inexperienced, he still is very talented and already displayed the qualities that make him the great MC he is today. His voice is also much lighter than it is today which was a bit surprising for me since I was far more familiar with his later works, but I still enjoyed it a lot.

This album is also notable because of it’s great jazz-influenced production. ?uestlove was already a pretty skilled drummer and the whole production team, The Grand Negaz, made this album a classic and one of the best hip-hop albums of the 90’s. Also the whole team got some help from legendary beatboxer Rahzel who appears on a few tracks and even has his own track with ?uestlove named “? vs Rahzel”. At the time Malik B. was also in the group, who is on most songs with Black Thought and Dice Raw although he is only featured on the song “The Lesson Part. 1″.

My only criticism about this album would probably be the length, it’s nearly an 75 minutes long, but luckily there’s barely any filler and there are some really strong songs like my personal favorite “Silent Treatment” a song which contains the essence of pure soulful jazz hip-hop. Some other songs like “Mellow My Man”, “Lazy Afternoon”, “Swept Away”, “What Goes On” and a couple of others are great hip-hop tracks, but they just didn’t stand out like “Silent Treatment”, to me at least.

For any Hip-Hop fan I think this is pretty much an essential; either you’re interested in seeing who The Roots were when they started or you just want some great jazz-influenced hip-hop from the 90s which totally defined the genre, I’m pretty sure everybody can find something they’ll like in this great effort. For anybody interested, the group announced a new album planning to be released soon for which a single was already released.

“I shall proceed and continue to rock the mic…”

by Jean-Guy

“Ég gaf ykkur von sem varð að vonbrigðum… þetta er ágætis byrjun”

This line featured in the album’s booklet means “I gave you hope that became a disappointment… this is a good beginning”.

Before I listened to this album, I was a bit afraid that the language difference would bother me since I wasn’t really used to Icelandic. Finally, I decided to give it a chance and it blew my mind; everything about this album was so artistic, beautiful and unique that I had no choice but to love it. With this record, I jumped into a universe that was totally unknown to me at the time and it’s probably why I loved it so much and still love it today. A dreamy universe of a genre that I never really approached before (Post-Rock), from a country that I never heard any music from at the time (Iceland), in a foreign language that I don’t understand a single word of (Icelandic), so everything about this album was new to me and, after the first three songs I fell in love with this breath-taking piece of art.

Along with the language, I had another problem with this album: every song is quite long and it did set me off a bit before my first listen. But when I started listening to it I found myself thinking that some songs could of been even longer because of how enjoyable they were. Jonsi’s beautiful vocals are just so moving that any track could last for a freaking hour and I don’t think I would really care. With this album you realize just how important the vocals really are for an album, since most of the people that will be listening to it probably won’t understand Icelandic. We sometimes give such importance to the lyrics that we can forget the value of the vocals themselves. Then there’s the music which is one of the strongest points of the album. It’s with this album that Jonsi started playing guitar with a cello bow and it will later become somewhat of a signature style for him; it’s actually the first time that I heard anybody playing guitar with a cello bow and I was impressed by how beautiful it sounds. This album isn’t just about Jonsi’s angelic voice and his stylish guitar playing though. The gorgeous orchestration, drums, bass and keyboard are used to drag us into this dream-like soundscape of unmatchable beauty and creativity. You’ll even find yourself discovering new things with each listen that will probably make you appreciate the album even more than on your first listen, although I think anybody can really appreciate it on it’s first time.

Sometimes it’s just fun to dive into an unexplored territory and see what we can find there. In this case, I stumbled on this amazing foreign band making some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever had the chance to listen to because I thought the album cover was really pretty. It’s weird to think that I nearly never even gave this album a chance simply because of the language barrier, when in fact it made me realize how much people glorify lyrics and can sometimes overlook the music’s complexity or beauty simply because of some words; the songs “Olsen Olsen” and “Ágætis byrjun” contain ‘Vonlenska’ (a gibberish language invented by the band members) but those songs are definitely some of my personal favorites on the album. This album is essential to any music lover whether you want something relaxing, or a near flawless masterpiece that will hopefully become one of your favorites.

by Jean-Guy

“Theory of Obscurity: Artists do their purest work in obscurity, with minimum feedback from any kind of audience. With no audience to consider, artists are free to create work that is true to their own vision.” – N. Senada

“The Residents may be the world’s most famous unknown band.” – David Wahl of creativecreativity.com

No matter who you are, no matter what your musical taste is, you’ve probably never heard something like this. ”Not Available” was recorded in 1974 right after their first album “Meet The Residents”, but because of their Theory of Obscurity stated by N. Senada (the “mentor” of the group, a most-likely fictional Bavarian composer) they decided to vault this album until people would forget about the band. So what should have been their first album follow-up was released in 1978, 4 years after the recording to avoid getting too much attention by fans and critics alike. Even today, 41 years after the band’s formation, nobody really knows who the people inside those funny costumes of huge eyeballs and cool suits are. They released over 60 albums and numerous other things like CD-ROM projects, DVDs, short-films, etc. while keeping their identity secret the entire time. I guess we could describe “Not Available” in only one single word: “Experimental”. And we have experimentation at its peak here. So unless, you have already heard an album from this group, you’ve probably never heard something similar.

The Residents’ vision of music is one of the most creative thing I’ve ever had the chance to see. Like I said, it’s experimentation at its finest and I guess the first song actually introduces you pretty well to this universe where creativity, seemingly, has absolutely no limit. The imagination of these guys is actually pretty well developed, what we hear is something so complex and “weird” that it will probably take you a few listens to get used to their Avant-Garde style but once you get used to it I’m pretty sure that you’ll fall in love with this freak show. Even with all of this, the album flows incredibly well and has a lot of replay-value when you start to embrace it.

With every album, no matter how great they are or how weird in this case, there are “highlights”. Well out of the 5 songs I could only come up with two songs that are a little bit more enjoyable than the rest and it’s really not by a lot. Those two songs are “Part Three: Ship’s a’Going Down”, where the stressful second part is really a genius move from the eyeballs and “Part Four: Never Known Questions” which is also a personal favorite. But the three remaining tracks that I didn’t name are also amazing songs and some might even prefer them to the songs that I just named.

There is also something worth noting, this album has a concept that is described in the liner notes of the re-issued copy as a love triangle between Edweena, Porcupine and Catbird which develops through the whole album, although it’s a pretty vague concept that I didn’t notice at first.

In my entire life, it was the first time that I approached a group as mysterious, interesting and complex as The Residents. Nobody really knows who they are and what is real about them. Rumors go that the spokesman of the group is actually a member, that other groups from the time share member with The Residents and some even say that the group is actually The Beatles in disguise! No matter who is hiding behind those weird costumes, one thing is for sure, those guys are geniuses who preferred relevancy to stardom and succeeded at becoming music legends without ever getting mainstream recognition throughout their long career.

For those who wonder why they have that weird name that doesn’t really represent the band, they got it when they sent a demo tape to Warner Brothers in 1971. Since there wasn’t any band name on the tape, the rejection slip was sent to ”The Residents” and the band decided to adopt this name since then. Perhaps one of the most mysterious and weird bands of all-time, but also one of the most creative I’ve ever had the chance to encounter, and they are an essential for every music listeners.

by Jean-Guy

Talk about being ahead of your time. Keith Tippett provided us with one timeless record over 35 years ago and today it still sounds so modern. I wasn’t really familiar with free-jazz before this but what a great introduction. For those who were like me when I first approached this sub-genre, free-jazz tries to break limitations that the previous styles of jazz created for the genre. “Dedicated To You, But You Weren’t Listening ” definitely break those limitations; It was released nearly 40 years ago and it still sounds ahead of it’s time, and even sometimes ahead of our time. Going somewhere in a Jazz-Rock style by mixing guitar solos in some of the wilder Jazz mixtures to truly break the mold of the Jazz of this era. Keith’s creativity seems to have no limit and each song expands on the other without sounding even remotely alike.

What we have here is an amazing display of musical creativity that only Jazz can give us. Keith breaks the established boundaries of musical structure to dive into a world of full-on experimentation with one of the most versatile music genres of all-time. I would also recommend listening to this album a few times, maybe like 4 or 5 times, since you might not get the true beauty of this amazing record that sadly doesn’t get the true recognition it deserves in modern music. Keith never stops to amaze during this album whether it’s for his whole creative vision or the use of certain uncommon things in the more conservative types of Jazz. The album’s highlight is probably the final song, “Black Horse” which displays a perfect mixture of Jazz and Rock giving the guitarist, Gary Boyle, a moment that definitely stands as one of the strongest on the whole album. The whole song is the peak of experimentation on the tracklist; blending powerful rockish drums, the great Santana-like guitar and brass instrumentation in a brilliant and creative way. Although songs like “This Is What Happens” and the Mingus-inspired “Green And Orange Night Park” are also really strong songs, it’s really “Black Horse” that holds the torch as the album’s focal point.

It’s a sad thing that this album doesn’t get the recognition it deserves in modern society, for some reasons that are totally unknown to me, since it’s such a great record that is sure to entertain you for this whole ride through the experimentation of a genius’ mind.

by Jean-Guy

100 days of 365 Albums A Year, ain’t that good news? Sam released two soul classics in a little less than a year. “Ain’t That Good News” is one of them; released just after the memorable “Night Beat”, it found it’s way to be one of the best albums (if not THE best) in Sam’s catalogue and a personal favorite of mine. This album is definitely a soul essential; it covers it all. The first side (the first six songs) include the wilder type of soul with decadent and catchy songs while the second side (the last six) is the smoother type of soul relying a lot on the emotion that Sam’s voice brings and the use of strings. I think everybody can find what they like in Soul on this beautiful album that this soul pioneer crafted for us.

“Ain’t That Good News” is actually a great album because of it’s versatility and it wouldn’t be fair for you to only talk about the overall result while you have two really distinct parts of this album. Like I said previously, the first part is really catchy and decadent; Sam just shows us that even after the smooth “Night Beat” he still had what it takes to do this kind of soul. The whole thing kicks off with the brilliant song “Good News” which really sets the mood for the other 5 songs. Not so long after that you’ve got one of my favorite songs on the first side, “Good Times”, a beautiful feel-good track and a highlight of the whole album. The other songs are still great songs that all have something special that will probably catch your ear or stay stuck in your head for a while.

The second part of this album might be more interesting for the soul purist. Well, let’s just say it starts strong. ”A Change Is Gonna Come” is easily one of my favorite songs of all-time. Sam sings with an unmatchable passion this powerful and moving politically oriented song backed by a beautiful orchestral arrangement. This song is not a soul essential, it’s a MUSIC essential. I must say it was probably a bad choice to put this song at the start of the second half of the album since it definitely outshines every single song beating them by miles. No matter what quality the following material is, it still couldn’t have possibly held it’s own against a masterpiece like ”A Change Is Gonna Come”, but there are actually some great songs where Sam Cooke displays a lot of emotion and pure vocal talent that solidifies his place as one of the best singers who has ever graced this earth. Songs like “Falling In Love” or “Sittin’ In The Sun” are some gems that some might overlook because of the standard the first song of the side set, yet those songs are still beautiful musical works.

There is another thing that this album has that I need to mention, the replay-ability. You could replay this album for a thousand times and I don’t think that it would ever become remotely annoying or boring. Sadly, this would be the last Sam Cooke album released prior to his murder in some weird circumstances, but Sam Cooke found a way to give his fans another classic before his death. A classic that would contain everything that makes soul such a great genre and that also contains one of the best songs of all-time.

by Jean-Guy

Soul is not dead and Lee Fields just proved it. This underground soul legend, if I may call him that, delivered one of the best albums of 2009 taking the second spot in my opinion, right behind Mos Def‘s 2009 opus. I’ve never ever heard about him before 2009 which is quite weird since he’s been around since 1969, but just went under the radar for some reason that I really can’t understand because “My World” is just amazing, a true soul gem. Lee Fields and his backing band, The Expressions, bring us back in the 60s without sounding outdated at all.

The whole album is an instant classic that will appeal to both soul aficionados and casual listeners. The Expressions are doing an amazing job as a backing band providing a great soulful vibe with some modern influences to avoid being outdated and it sounds amazing. Then there’s Lee Fields, Dave from Des Oreilles Dans Babylone called him the “underground James Brown”. Well I believe it’s totally appropriate to call him that, even if he’s 58 years old he’s still got the energy of a young James and a really strong voice that alone could solidify him as a true legend of this music style that influenced today’s most popular genres. Out of the 11 tracks, there is not a single filler or weak song. Lee just gave us the best about soul and found a way to stay original and satisfy the listener.

Although there aren’t any weak songs, there’s one song that truly stand out from the rest. That song is “Ladies”, which I would call right away the best song of 2009. It’s just so groovy, soulful and catchy that you can’t help but embrace this abundance of soul. But actually, even if this track is my personal favorite off this beautiful soul album, all of the songs are worth listening to. Whether it’s for Lee’s amazing vocals, good lyrics or for The Expressions great music, I think everybody can find something that they’ll like in “My World”.

It’s a shame that the world slept on such an amazing musician for such a long time. If he would have got the recognition he deserved earlier, he would be a soul legend on the same level as guys like Marvin Gaye [2], Sam Cooke and James Brown. Although all of them are today gone, Lee Fields gave us the chance with “My World” to rediscover what made these guys the music pioneers that they were with a different approach, but with the same amount of talent.

by Jean-Guy