Your Drunken Eyes

Various Artists - Rage 30: Celebrating 30 Years Of R-R-R-R-Rage! (2017) {3 CD Set ABC Music-Universal - 5377101 rec 1987-2016}
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© 1987-2016, 2017 ABC Music / Universal | 5377101
Alternative / Indie / Pop / Rock / Electronic

This massive compilation features standout tracks from across the three decades Rage has been on air. Songs that have resonated with fans and artists covering all genres, ages, genders and nationalities; it’s the definitive Rage collection! The rainy nights staying in, the drunken stumbles home, the house party-starter, the soundtrack to morning muesli – Rage means something different to everyone. The late-night television mainstay has entertained generations of Australians, providing a musical education and a window into a world of colour and artistry that is sometimes poetic, sometimes plastic, often raunchy but always fascinating.

This 1981 recording was the first period-instrument version of Purcell's most famous "semi-opera." This Restoration-era hybrid was a play with a complete (spoken) script plus numerous musical numbers for soloists, chorus, and pit orchestra. The Fairy Queen is based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, although you'd never know it from the music, which has (typically for the genre) no real connection to the plot. (Most of the songs and dances are masques performed for the entertainment of Titania, Oberon, or Hippolytus.) The advantage to this is that Purcell's score can be performed fairly well on its own. The Fairy Queen includes some of Purcell's best-loved comic scenes ("The Drunken Poet" and "Coridon and Mopsa") and songs ("Hark the echoing Air," "Ye gentle spirits," and "Hark how all things in one sound rejoice"–the last sung here by Jennifer Smith, sounding more beautiful than on any recording she's made since).

Inevitably, there's some symbolism implied when an artist, after years of lurking behind a semi-obscure pseudonym– head down, eyes averted, shoulders squeezed and high– puts out a record under his common name. Former Third Eye Foundation principal Matt Elliott has spent most of his recording career as a modish UK hipster in a dark disguise: thus, the leap from "Third Eye Foundation" to "Matt Elliott" should involve a nice dose of lurid confessionalism, some newfound honesty, a running-around-naked-in-daylight reinvention of self. Right? Hey, turn this car around! Someone left the personal catharsis at home! The Mess We Made, Matt Elliott's proper debut as Matt Elliott is, at least atmospherically, just as shadowed and sinister as his late, orchestral Third Eye work.

Tom Waits - Used Songs 1973-1980 (2001) {Elektra–Rhino 8122-78351-2}
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© 1973-80, 2001 Asylum / Elektra / Rhino / Warner | 8122-78351-2
Rock / Blues / Blues Rock / Singer-Songwriter

Rhino's fine 16-track collection Used Songs (1973-1980) chronicles Tom Waits' first seven albums, all recorded for Asylum Records. This contains pretty much all his staples from the '70s – "Heartattack and Vine," "Burma Shave," "Ol' 55," "Jersey Girl," "(Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night," and "Tom Traubert's Blues" among them – sequenced not chronologically, but sequenced for maximum impact. Given the sheer amount of music Waits made for Asylum, it shouldn't be surprising that there are some fan favorites missing, but there are no complaints with what is here, and this provides a near-perfect encapsulation of his pre-Island years, especially for those only familiar with the Island recordings.

The ultimate compendium of a half century of the best music, now revised and updated. 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die is a highly readable list of the best, the most important, and the most influential pop albums from 1955 through today. Carefully selected by a team of international critics and some of the best-known music reviewers and commentators, each album is a groundbreaking work seminal to the understanding and appreciation of music from the 1950s to the present. Included with each entry are production details and credits as well as reproductions of original album cover art. Perhaps most important of all, each album featured comes with an authoritative description of its importance and influence.

This CD contains selected themes from five of Chaplins brilliant films. The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), The Circus (1928), City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936). If you love the music from these films then you will love this album. Carl Davis has been very sensitive when rerecording the original scores. The music sounds amazing and he has remained true to Chaplins own styles and tempo's. The thing that will strike you more than anything is how amazing these scores really are in Stereo! They really do sound very good indeed. It also fully demonstrates just how good a composer Chaplin really was, and his talent for marrying music to film. As music it is beautiful from the harshness of "Gold Rush" to the haunting "Modern Times" and not forgetting the swinging "City Lights". Magical stuff! 5 out of 5, 10 out of 10 etc… But if you are planning on listening to this 80 minute album from beginning to end, you'd better make sure you have some Chaplin films close to hand because you WILL want to watch them all again. Nostalgia at its very best.