Classic album features
I regularly write classic album features for Long Live Vinyl magazine, Classic Pop and a variety of special editions.
ogden's nut
gone flake
The high-water mark of mod conceptualism, the Small Faces blended powerhouse pop, fantastical whimsy and Unwinese gobbledygook on their glorious 1968 landmark LP.
Astral weeks
He barely spoke to his attendant session musicians, so how did Van Morrison conjure up a masterpiece song cycle of jazzy blue-eyed soul for his second studio album?
the kinks are the village green preservation society
Ray Davies’ most fully formed concept piece famously flopped at the time of release but has since gone on to be viewed as his finest work. I investigate the story behind The Kinks’ most enduring LP.
revolver
After retreating from the pressures of life on the road, The Beatles transformed pop music forever with this leap into the unknown. The album where a melting pot of the Tibetan Book Of The Dead, Motown, LSD and English pastoralism all made perfect sense.
sgt Pepper’s lonely hearts club band
As The Beatles’ made high art out of pop,
Sgt Pepper became a totemic release of the Summer of Love in 1967. But is it arguable that
The Beatles’ most famous album is also their
most misunderstood?
‘the white album’
Paul McCartney: “I’m not one to say ‘maybe it had too much of this or that’. It’s great, it sold, it’s the bloody Beatles White Album. Shut up.”
Macca’s right, the extraordinary scope of the band’s 1968 double album is exactly what makes it one of their most intriguing and satisfying releases.
abbey road
The swansong album (in the studio at least) that keeps getting better with age. The Beatles’ most polished production turned song fragments into a stunning, timeless pop suite.
listen without prejudice vol.1
Downbeat, introspective and mournful,
George Michael’s second solo album – from the title onwards – demanded to be taken seriously.
older
Emerging from a period of grief, George Michael found hope in the bleakest of circumstances to create a poignant album packed with emotion
and intelligence.