To his credit, Steve Hackett learned from the mistakes made on Please Don't Touch, and delivered a much-improved mix of songs and instrumentals on 1975's Spectral Mornings. With a workable backing band that includes John Shearer, Nick Magnus, and former Decameron bassist Dik Cadbury, the ex-Genesis guitarist exploits his strengths: progressive instrumentals that skip between heaven and hell, pastoral pop songs, and a healthy dose of English humor…
Delivered in the wake of Phil Collins' massive success as a solo star, Invisible Touch was seen at the time as a bit of a Phil Collins solo album disguised as a Genesis album, and it's not hard to see why. Invisible Touch is, without a doubt, Genesis' poppiest album, a sleek, streamlined affair built on electronic percussion and dressed in synths that somehow seem to be programmed, not played by Tony Banks…
The blues had long been a potent undercurrent in the Birthday Party's music, so it wasn't all that surprising that Nick Cave embraced the sound and feeling of rural blues on his second album with the Bad Seeds, The Firstborn Is Dead…
Anyone who knew anything about Pink Floyd knew that a dance band they were not, so this compilation, courtesy of Columbia Records, was intended ironically…
Steve Hackett is best known as the guitarist with Genesis during their best years as both a progressive and commercial band, across ten albums of their history.
Nostalgia is inevitable in the music world. Inevitably, there are those who yearn to experience the music of an era that they aren't old enough to have witnessed first-hand. That is why, in the 21st century, one sees so many people in their teens and twenties at 1970s/1980s-minded metal shows; young headbangers who weren't even born when David Lee Roth was still singing lead for Van Halen or when Mötley Crüe started headlining soccer arenas want a taste of what metal concerts were like back in the day…
The Scorpions' two previous releases, Blackout and Love at First Sting, were mostly successful due to the band's ability to adjust with the times; with Blackout, they used the classic power rock introduced by bands like Van Halen, and for Sting they used similar melodies, but with a harder, tighter sound akin to the work of such bands as Dokken and REO Speedwagon. With Savage Amusement, the group's first studio recording in almost four years, The Scorpions experimented with more polished pop melodies that Def Leppard and the like had made popular…
Pianist/composer Jacques Loussier demonstrated musical ability at an early age, starting to play at the age of ten and entering the Conservatoire National de Musique in Paris at 16. Loussier's main professor there was Yves Nat, who in turn was encouraged by Faure, Saint-Saens, and Debussy as a student himself. Loussier continued this distinguished tradition, graduating at the top of his class…