Browsing: Album Rewinds

The recording sessions were plagued with problems, but Paul McCartney and Wings made the best of it. The result: one of his most beloved LPs.

The soul-influenced duo was still finding their way when they recorded their second album. Superstardom would soon find them.

With friends Jeff Lynne and Eric Clapton aboard, and songs like “When We Was Fab” and “Got My Mind Set on You,” the album was a huge hit.

A “feverish poetic intensity persists” throughout the cycle of songs that comprise his 1968 work, even as those songs shift in pace and tone

Wildly theatrical, straddling the worlds of hard rock, pop, prog and Broadway, the album was an eclectic triumph. Now, Queen sounded like a true band.

The 1972 album proved a breakthrough for his career both in terms of quality and box-office appeal as singers of many genres competed to record its tunes

The late Lester Bangs had “no doubt that it’s the best rock concert ever put on record.” Decades later, our writer feels that’s still true

“It was an air of merriment. Under all the camaraderie and joviality, we took the music extremely seriously,” said Rod Stewart.

There was much more to this genre-defying band than “Hot Rod Lincoln.” Here is the back story of a truly versatile and unique group.

What had begun as post-‘Sgt. Pepper’ psychedelia turned toward a darker, more idiosyncratic synthesis of jazz, blues, world music and English folk elements.