Midnight Inbox 1.4.4

Night Ranger's second album Midnight Madness may not have been as consistent as their debut, but it did spawn the band's biggest hit, "Sister Christian." While it served as their commercial breakthrough, the infamous power ballad also relegated the group to "one-hit wonder" status while fueling their reputation as being "too soft" for a metal band…

John Pizzarelli lays it all out in the title of his 2015 album: this tribute to Paul McCartney is designed for play in the smoky late-night hours, when everything turns sweet and mellow. Furthermore, this is a tribute to McCartney, not the Beatles. There isn't a Fab song to be found here, as Pizzarelli focuses entirely on Paul's solo work (for these intents and purposes, this includes Wings records), concentrating on the '70s but also sliding McCartney's Great American Songbook wannabe "My Valentine" into the mix. Pizzarelli digs up a few other obscurities – the early Wings song "Some People Never Know," the Speed of Sound deep cut "Warm and Beautiful" – and he also plays around with expectations, making "Let 'Em In" swing like mad and relaxing "Hi Hi Hi" so it doesn't rock, it grooves. He also invites Michael McDonald to sing on "Coming Up," which swaggers like Sinatra in Vegas, but for as delightful as that is, the key to the record's success is Pizzarelli himself, who delivers upon the laid-back promise of the title but is savvier than he needed to be, which is why Midnight McCartney satisfies.

The crackling stations being switched on the radio and the gang shout followed by the spoken injunction to "burn it down" sound like they should be starting off a Sham 69 record. Then "Burn It Down" actually starts, with its horn section, Hammond organ and Kevin Rowland's utterly unconventional soul vocals. The cult of Dexy's, and this album in particular, were worshipped as the return of "soul" to English rock music at the dawn of Thatcherism. Exploring the myth that this album holds, especially in Brit music terms, can be a strange prospect: 20 years on it doesn't sound revolutionary, it just sounds good. And good it is, quite good, compared to where Paul Weller ended up, i.e., too reverential by half. This is vibrant, alive, and unconcerned with perfection…

Midnight Sun were a Progressive Rock group from Denmark, whose style is influenced by such acts as Traffic, Burnin' Red Ivanhoe, and later on, Blood Sweat And Tears. They first started out as Rainbow Band, but soon had to change their name, after it was found that a Canadian group had already taken it. They released four studio albums during their career, the first two or three probably being the more famous. Their albums are also of serious value to collectors and were all designed by the famous Roger Dean.

RESIST will be Midnight Oil’s 15th studio release since they first exploded out of the post-punk scene back in 1978, blazing a singular trail of blistering gigs from Australia’s pubs and clubs to arenas and festivals around the world.

A very obscure and difficult to locate album produced in Germany in the early-70's. This is a dreamy progressive folk album that appears to be a duo augmented by sessions musicians (in the manner of Witthuser + Westrupp but with vocals sung in English). The album does venture out into a tougher rock sound at times while at others it will float on a bed of mellotron sound which hazily recalls the sound of early King Crimson or The Moody Blues. A very interesting and rare album which is well worth a listen.