Deluge (1974)

On his third album, Jackson Browne returned to the themes of his debut record (love, loss, identity, apocalypse) and, amazingly, delved even deeper into them. "For a Dancer," a meditation on death like the first album's "Song for Adam," is a more eloquent eulogy; "Farther On" extends the "moving on" point of "Looking Into You"; "Before the Deluge" is a glimpse beyond the apocalypse evoked on "My Opening Farewell" and the second album's "For Everyman." If Browne had seemed to question everything in his first records, here he even questioned himself. "For me some words come easy, but I know that they don't mean that much," he sang on the opening track, "Late for the Sky," and added in "Farther On," "I'm not sure what I'm trying to say." Yet his seeming uncertainty and self-doubt reflected the size and complexity of the problems he was addressing in these songs, and few had ever explored such territory, much less mapped it so well. "The Late Show," the album's thematic center, doubted but ultimately affirmed the nature of relationships, while by the end, "After the Deluge," if "only a few survived," the human race continued nonetheless. It was a lot to put into a pop music album, but Browne stretched the limits of what could be found in what he called "the beauty in songs," just as Bob Dylan had a decade before.

By this point Henry Cow consisted of guitarist Fred Frith, drummer Chris Cutler, bassist John Greaves, keyboardist Tim Hodgkinson, and, of particular importance to the band's sound at this point, bassoonist Lindsay Cooper. As is so often the case with avant-garde rock & roll, it's the composed pieces that work best, and the fact that Frith is responsible for the majority of them is significant…

Picking our list of the Top 100 '70s Rock Albums was no easy task, if only because that period boasted such sheer diversity. The decade saw rock branch into a series of intriguing new subgenres, beginning, at the dawn of the '70s, with heavy metal. Singer-songwriters came into their own; country-rock flourished. The era ended with the revitalizing energy of punk and New Wave. No list would be complete without climbing onto every one of those limbs. Here are the Top 100 '70s Rock Albums, presented chronologically from the start of the decade.

British progressive pioneers Henry Cow was the leading group of the Rock In Opposition (R.I.O. for short) movement, initiated by their drummer Chris Cutler. All members of Henry Cow have been involved in collaborations with Canterbury groups and artists at one point or another, and most of them still are. Their music aged amazingly well over the last 20 years due to diverse influences: some of its roots in the Canterbury school, most notably early Soft Machine, other influences (Frank Zappa, Bela Bartok, Kurt Weil). The group functioned more or less as a collective, with a true group identity that changed from album to album as members came and went.
Henry Cow's first album, "Legend" (read "Leg End"), is considered by many their most accessible, and makes a good starter. Their sound draws on modern classical music, jazz and experimental music…

British progressive pioneers Henry Cow was the leading group of the Rock In Opposition (R.I.O. for short) movement, initiated by their drummer Chris Cutler. All members of Henry Cow have been involved in collaborations with Canterbury groups and artists at one point or another, and most of them still are. Their music aged amazingly well over the last 20 years due to diverse influences: some of its roots in the Canterbury school, most notably early Soft Machine, other influences (Frank Zappa, Bela Bartok, Kurt Weil). The group functioned more or less as a collective, with a true group identity that changed from album to album as members came and went.
Henry Cow's first album, "Legend" (read "Leg End"), is considered by many their most accessible, and makes a good starter. Their sound draws on modern classical music, jazz and experimental music…

3 X CD SET FEATURING LIVE BROADCAST RECORDINGS FROM 1972, 1973 & 1976 The three live FM radio broadcasts encompassed in this delightful package come from 1972, 1974 and 1976 respectively - for many, if not most fans, Browne s golden era. Disc one features an in-studio session recorded at and broadcast from the RCA Studios in New York. It took place just eight months after the release of his debut and as is evident that, even at this early stage in his career, Jackson had already matured into a strong live performer and superlative composer. Disc two boasts a show performed at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in early spring 1974, and during which label-mate Linda Ronstadt, who was touring with Browne at the time, joins Jackson for a version of One More Song, a number by Jack Tempchin - the man who composed the lovely Eagles number Peaceful Easy Feeling. Disc three includes the full Soundstage performance Jackson Browne gave for the regular PBS TV series of concert broadcasts in 1976. Recorded at the WTTW studios in Chicago, this concert is augmented by two bonus cuts taken from Browne s appearance on Saturday Night Live the same year.