Udsacd 7001

With its endless, droning minor-key riff and mumbled vocals, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is arguably the most notorious song of the acid rock era. According to legend, the group was so stoned when they recorded the track that they could neither pronounce the title "In the Garden of Eden" or end the track, so it rambles on for a full 17 minutes, which to some listeners sounds like eternity. But that's the essence of its appeal – it's the epitome of heavy psychedelic excess, encapsulating the most indulgent tendencies of the era.

Having scored three multi-platinum hits in a row, Billy Joel took a breather, releasing his first live album, Songs in the Attic, as he worked on his ambitious follow-up to Glass Houses. Joel wisely decided to use the live album as an opportunity to draw attention to songs from his first four albums. Apart from "Piano Man," none of those songs had been heard by the large audience he had won with The Stranger. Furthermore, he now had a seasoned backing band that helped give his music a specific identity – in short, it was an opportunity to reclaim these songs, now that he had a signature sound. And Joel didn't botch the opportunity – Songs in the Attic is an excellent album, ranking among his very best work.

Carole King - The Carnegie Hall Concert
XLD+LOG+CUE | WV: 359 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: MFSL # UDSACD 2067 | Country/Year: US 2010
Genre: Rock, Pop | Style: Singer/Songwriter

"…I tend to agree that there are several cuts where the mids were a bit loud but maybe MFSL was just being faithful to the original master tape. But this sacd version is clearly superior to the 1996 cd version. To sum up, my purchase of this version is really justified." ~sa-cd.net

…Skynyrd was nothing but rockers, and they were Southern rockers to the bone. This didn't just mean that they were rednecks, but that they brought it all together – the blues, country, garage rock, Southern poetry – in a way that sounded more like the South than even The Allmans…

Toulouse Street was the album by which most of their fans began discovering the Doobie Brothers, and it has retained a lot of its freshness over the decades. Producer Ted Templeman was attuned to the slightly heavier and more Southern style the band wanted to work toward on this, their second album, and the results were not only profitable — including a platinum record award — but artistically impeccable…

The group's first album with Michael McDonald marked a shift to a more mellow and self-consciously soulful sound for the Doobies, not all that different from what happened to Steely Dan – whence McDonald (and Jeff Baxter) had come – between, say, Can't Buy a Thrill and Pretzel Logic…