THE older you get, the more the musical past seems more exciting than the musical present.
With that in mind, we takes you back four decades to 1970 - a year that saw us lose both Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin to drugs and The Beatles to in-fighting, but one that, in hindsight, would hint at the births of heavy metal and new directions in jazz.
So here are Musicology's top albums from 40 years ago (and some that only just missed the cut). Admittedly, this list is fairly similar to my 1969 list, but that's just the way it goes.
Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel
THE duo's final and biggest-selling album is best summed up by it's title track - Paul and Art's animosity was growing and although keen to go their seperate ways, they held on long enough to make this fitting farewell. It's one of the most-bought records in history and for good reason. Aside from the title track - which is said to be one of the most covered songs in history - it also contains the spectacular-sounding melancholic production-epic The Boxer, the ironically upbeat Cecilia, covers of the Spanish tune El Condor Pasa and the Everly Brothers Bye Bye Love, and the gorgeous closer Song For The Asking. Simon & Garfunkel's perfectly intertwined voices were at odds with their personalities, and you can't help but feel the album was only made, as it says in the horn-driven pop number on side one, to "keep the customer satisfied". But the customers were very glad they did, all 25 million-plus of them.
Black Sabbath/Paranoid - Black Sabbath
NOT only did these British rockers unleash two albums in the space of 1970 (although Paranoid didn't get a US release until '71), but they also inadvertantly gave birth to heavy metal (bands like Led Zeppelin and Blue Cheer also helped, but Sabbath were heavier). It's all there on the track that bears their name, which opens their self-titled debut - the "demonic" tri-tone, the ominous sound, Ozzy's dark lyrics and the flat-out riffing of the finale. Elsewhere on their debut, they tread a similar path to Led Zeppelin (The Wizard) and Cream (N.I.B.), but the results are still awesome, rocking and surprisingly heavy for the time. The album was mostly dismissed by critics upon release, but stoner's loved it. However, it's on the follow-up Paranoid that they really began to embrace the dark side, creating a landmark record that stands as perhaps the greatest metal/stoner rock album of all time and boasts the four best songs of Sabbath's career - Iron Man, Paranoid, War Pigs and Planet Caravan, which comprise the whole of side one.
Cosmo's Factory/Pendulum - Creedence Clearwater Revival
CCR bookended 1970 with their final two great records, bringing their album tally to six in three years. Cosmo's is the better of the two, containing their stomping 11-minute version of I Heard It Through The Grapevine (featuring some of John Fogerty's greatest lead breaks), some classic country cuts (Lookin' Out My Back Door, their cover of My Baby Left Me), the timeless Who'll Stop The Rain, the adventurous detours of Ramble Tamble, rock'n'roller Travelin' Band and the voodoo-on-your-tail of Run Through The Jungle. The tensions welling up, fueled by John Fogerty's dictatorial hold over the band, meant the four-piece line-up lasted through the recording of the more experimental Pendulum in '70 but Tom Fogerty departed soon after. His last album with the band is under-rated due to a comparitive lack of singles (only Have You Ever Seen The Rain? and Hey Tonight were hits), but Born To Move is their funkiest moment ever, while Sailor's Lament, Hideaway and It's Just A Thought showed John Fogerty's song-writing stretching out into new places. The psychedelic freak-out closing the album, Rude Awakening #2, is pretty experimental for CCR too, and is surprisingly listenable avant-garde.
Bitches Brew - Miles Davis
CONTINUING his musical experimentations, trumpeter/bandleader Miles Davis pushed jazz into new territory on this at-the-time divisive record. Seen now as a landmark moment in music, it featured Davis' crack band delving into free improvisations, held together at times by rock rhythms that have seen it labelled as one of the first jazz-rock fusions. As well as employing the electric piano and electric guitar he had used for previous album In A Silent Way, Davis and producer Teo Macero started using the studio as an intrument too, looping segments and carefully splicing sections together. On numbers such as the title track, delays and reverbs were used on Davis' trumpet to create new sounds and effects not heard before in jazz. It's far from easy listening, but the frantic opener Pharoah's Dance is a glorious amalgam of sound and the moments throughout the album when the band comes together in fresh and unexpected ways are magical.
Let It Be - The Beatles
THIS was the album that broke up the greatest band ever - although they reconvened in the wake of the tumultuous recording sessions to make the more-fitting farewell Abbey Road - but even in their times of trouble, The Beatles were still able to reproduce the magic. Meant to be a stripped-back album, the final product featured added strings and uber-production from Phil Spector, leading McCartney to release a superior "naked" version of the album 33 years later. Amid the jokey snippets of studio chatter and the filler (Dig It, Maggie Mae) there is some real gold, notably McCartney's title track and the groovy country-rock closer Get Back, Lennon's Across The Universe and Harrison's I Me Mine. Recorded in '69 but not released until '70, it came out amid a slew of solo albums from the recently defunct Fab Four. Harrison's over-long triple-album All Things Must Pass is the pick of the bunch, although Lennon's raw John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band has some great highlights (Mother, Working Class Hero), as does McCartney (Junk, Maybe I'm Amazed). And the less said about Ringo's two solo albums of '70 the better.
Other great albums released in 1970: Van Morrison's Moondance, CSNY's Deja Vu, The Doors' bluesy return-to-form Morrison Hotel, Led Zeppelin III, The Meters' funky influential double shot of Look-Ka Py Py and Struttin', The Stooges' continuing filth and fury on Fun House, Santana's Abraxus and Neil Young's raw basement-ballads on After The Gold Rush.
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