Mott+the+hoople

Mental Train: The Island Years 1969-1971 is a deep dive into the wild, wooly years before Mott the Hoople discovered glam. In other words, it's Mott the Hoople before they had anything resembling a hit but were still one of the hardest, heaviest, and weirdest rock bands to roam the land – and one of the most prolific, too. This six-disc box set covers a mere three years, but it was three years where they released four albums, piling up B-sides and other strays along the way. Mental Train rounds up what seems to be every surviving scrap and adds them as bonus tracks to Mott the Hoople, Mad Shadows, Wildlife and Brain Capers, and presenting two discs of non-LP material: a disc of unreleased music and a disc of live material…

Mott the Hoople are one of the great also-rans in the history of rock & roll. Though Mott scored a number of album rock hits in the early '70s, the band never quite broke through into the mainstream. Nevertheless, their nasty fusion of heavy metal, glam rock, and Bob Dylan's sneering hipster cynicism provided the groundwork for many British punk bands, most notably the Clash…

Two albums on one disc-72 minutes in length approximately. This set is somewhere between 3 and 4 "stars". The sound has been remastered from the original tapes and is clean, with good separation between the instruments…

Long before ex-Twisted Sister vocalist Dee Snider fronted a short-lived heavy metal band named Widowmaker in the early '90s, there was another band called Widowmaker, a British-based one that was active for an even shorter spell during the mid-'70s…

From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, a group fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. The latter is something of a ringer, suggesting an undercurrent of adventure in the band, but as the group's eponymous 1974 debut decidedly proves, the band is proudly not progressive…

Although the pop music of the 1970s is often unfairly maligned, this four-disc set shows that the decade brought, if nothing else, tremendous variety to the pop charts. Highlights, although every track was a hit, include the O'Jays' "Love Train," Bill Withers' "Lean on Me," Billy Paul's "Me and Mrs. Jones," and Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side," among many others.

From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, a group fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. The latter is something of a ringer, suggesting an undercurrent of adventure in the band, but as the group's eponymous 1974 debut decidedly proves, the band is proudly not progressive…

Joe Elliott's Down n Outz hit the stage at Sheffield Corporation in 2014. Paying homage to musical heroes, Mott the Hoople, Mott, British Lions and of course Ian Hunter.Featuring Rock n roll Queen, Marionette, One of the boys and others in this raw and stunning performance…

Slade may have never truly caught on with American audiences (often narrow-mindedly deemed "too British-sounding"), but the group became a sensation in their homeland with their anthemic brand of glam rock in the early '70s, as they scored a staggering 11 Top Five hits in a four-year span from 1971 to 1974 (five of which topped the charts)…