We know we don't live in a perfect musical landscape. Never have. So the interesting question sometimes comes up: If an artist absolutely, positively HAS to include a 'filler' song, where should it go? Certainly not at the beginning of the album, most would agree — then you'd be disappointed outright, and the initial mood would hang over the rest of the album. And not at the end, either — most would agree with that. It'd leave you on a sour note. So where, then? I contend that the first track of side ... [read the rest]
Music Nerds
Find new music and tell others about your favorites
Music Nerds features music articles, music lists, and track-by-track reviews of a wide range of albums, and we're always adding more. Hopefully you will be inspired to check out something new and add to your music collection and consciousness. Participate by writing your own review or article, compiling a music list, or joining in our discussions on every page!
Here are the latest additions to the site:
by John Martyn
This, my friends, is a very, very special record. For a more thorough overview of John Martyn's long career of musical innovation, so sadly ended by his death at the beginning of the year, I would direct you to my humble tribute article elsewhere on Music Nerds, and also to his excellent official site at http://www.johnmartyn.com. "Some people keep diaries, I make records," John said of this one, which he also cited as his favourite work. The pages are torn from one of the darkest ... [read the rest]
In the beginning — or, rather, at the beginning — of the eighties, Tears For Fears were a nice little radio-friendly pop outfit. With composers Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith as frontmen, singles such as "Mad World", "Shout" and "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" had provided them with international hits. Their first two albums, The Hurting (1983) and Songs From The Big Chair (1985) had been received with similar success. All well and good: catchy enough ... [read the rest]
by Underworld
I've said it before, and I'll say it again (and again), I hate musical 'style labels'. For those who have nothing better to do than categorize it with largely meaningless and limiting tags, music can't be much fun. And everyone who really does love music surely knows that the greatest enjoyment normally comes from sources which defy petty classifications. The rock 'n' roll versus dance music dispute is an extension of the same idea. Anyone — artist or punter — who ... [read the rest]
by Beck
After big commercial success with 1994's "Loser", a hilarious bit of slacker/hipster/music-nerd post-hiphop grooving, Beck gave no indication that he was looking to replicate that success nor to be pigeonholed by it. The strikingly different Odelay (1996) followed, electrifying Mellow Gold's acoustic guitars and adding harsh beats and kaleidoscopic samples while moving through a feverish if cohesive array of musical styles. Having built upon his success anyway ... [read the rest]
Love Is A Lesson To Learn In Our Time
R.I.P. John Martyn 1948—2009
I was deeply saddened to receive news of the passing of another innovative and original artist at the close of last month. John Martyn was one of the most talented guitarists and composers who I ever had the privilege to witness live (on more occasions than I can recall) and, at the same time, one of the humblest and most human performers ever to have walked the boards. Were it the Glastonbury main stage or a tacky student union bar; with a big band behind him, duetting with Danny Thompson's stand-up bass, or simply ... [read the rest]
In the late eighties, just as The Replacements were starting to disband, an interviewer asked frontman Paul Westerberg about the band's reputation as a live act. "It seems like you guys just can't win!" said the interviewer, referring to the often drunken, shambling live performances of the 'Mats who played rocked-out versions of seventies pop and buzzed through their own songs while falling down and off-key. Quoth Westerberg: "Our basic problem is that the people who love ... [read the rest]
by Kate Bush
By the beginning of 1978, the first wave of Punk seemed to be running out of spit and the New Wave was still to fully break. And, at that very point, an utterly unique and category-defying talent was unleashed onto the UK market. Or, rather, chose to unleash herself... The pre-album debut single "Wuthering Heights", released on January 20th, was completely unlike anything that had been heard before. In my high school musical microcosm, the camps were irreconcilably divided ... [read the rest]
by Prince
When Prince released Dirty Mind at the dawn of the eighties, he had clearly hit his stride. His previous two albums, the forgettable and generic For You and the admirable (but still generic) Prince made him known around his hometown of Minneapolis, true. But with Dirty Mind, Prince announced his eventual takeover of pop music in a quietly forceful way that is present in every track of his third album. With a black and white cover that shows Prince ... [read the rest]
By 1971, Black Sabbath were already revered amongst those still clinging to the hippie philosophy, though Sabbath presented something different. Instead of the routine optimism of their colleagues — if you could even consider them 'colleagues' — Black Sabbath had been operating on their previous two albums with a sense of otherworldly bite and menace, though not in the obtuse, artificial sense of other bands of the time trying to present a pessimistic worldview. Master ... [read the rest]
by Arthur Lee
The new-wave/leftover-prog year of 1981 saw the release of this self-titled Arthur Lee LP on Rhino Records, an album featuring a wide range of musical styles that would become infamous for its slapdash feel and almost immediate consignment to the obscure OOP bins of Love-loving music nerds everywhere. Although his stature had steadily and rapidly been decreasing since the release of Forever Changes by his group Love in 1967, Arthur Lee never stopped writing and recording ... [read the rest]
Considering that "Mister [abbr Mr(.), pl Messrs(.)]" is rightly a title, it's only right that the Misters on this list are also titles: so passing lyrical references to "some silicone sister with her manager's mister" or bosses called "Mr McGee" — or even "Dylan's Mr Jones" — are therefore inadmissible. The title (like the co-derived "Master") has etymological roots in Old English, Old French and Latin alike, originally coming from the word "most"; as in 'most powerful', 'most influential', 'most skilful' ... [read the rest]
by Terry Reid
The name, and the music, of Terry Reid may not be widely known: but that doesn't mean they're not worthy of the attention of any true music nerd. As the man who turned down Jimmy Page's offer of providing vocals for 'The New Yardbirds' due to contractual obligations (recommending one Robert Plant in his stead), he could — or should — be a household name. He later rejected Deep Purple also, in order to continue doing his own thing; Ian Gillan eventually got the gig. Such ... [read the rest]
Counter-List: Ten more Beatles songs you love to hate
Or hate to love... Perhaps more intented to complement Mr Morrow's list, to which I shall make reference in due course: the definition of naffness is, after all, a very personal matter. No Beatle exempted, evaluating the length of their career, and limiting myself to just one cover version (not an easy task in itself), here you have them — the unfabbest of The Fabs. With the caveat, of course, that I still cherish them every bit as much as their more praiseworthy contemporaries ... [read the rest]
by AC/DC
When AC/DC launched their assault overseas, their first port of call was merry old England. Once there, their attitude and relatively short, furious songs had them riding the punk zeitgeist. But AC/DC were never a punk band. If you place yourself in those times, yeah, you can understand how they were (mainly by lazy journalists) considered as part of the movement, but AC/DC had their own different ideals. And there was one big difference between AC/DC and punk bands: AC/DC would ... [read the rest]
One of the most underrated albums from the Stones, Between The Buttons was, like the albums that preceded it, released with slightly different material in the UK and the US. This US version includes (as usual) a couple of hit singles. 'Missing' songs that were included in the UK version were later released on the compilation Flowers as well as on singles. All songs were written by Jagger and Richards. Between The Buttons reached number 3 in the UK and number ... [read the rest]
The All-Time Worst Beatles Songs
They deserve their legendary status. They were as good as their strongest supporters will tell you — often better, in fact. Their existence seems so inevitable now, so many years later, with every note and every "Yeah!" of every song still coursing through the veins of millions around the world. The Beatles appealed to every type of person in every place, and their unbelievable music is as fresh now as it was when it was new. How did they create music so accomplished, and unrestrictive, and so consistently ... [read the rest]
In early 1981, the Rolling Stones had a problem — they were planning a massive tour of North America for the summer of that year, but they had no real album to back it up with. Due to a tremendous feud between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and the on again/off again addiction problems of Ronnie Wood, there had only been sporadic sessions in 1980. The solution? Much like Led Zeppelin and Physical Graffiti, pull together unreleased tracks, clean them up, and release ... [read the rest]
The train. One of the key components of pre-rock folk, country and blues music managed to carry over into the rock era as an inspiration and at turns cruel and sympathetic character. The distance, and hence escape, offered by trains has piqued the creativity of songwriters ever since the first steam-powered beasts began rumbling across the American landscape. There is also something crucial in the inevitability of the train's journey — the locomotive snakes its way across mountains, through canyons, shaking ... [read the rest]
by Interpol
Sophomore slump? A band daring to test the boundaries of its sound and going in some questionable directions? Attempting to too closely replicate the unbelievable success of its previous long player and instead producing mediocrity? None of these describe Interpol's second album Antics. If anything, the band took cues from its earliest material and expanded on it in exciting and surprising new ways. The foursome from New York City coalesced into a rampaging live band ... [read the rest]
by AC/DC
Coming into 1980, AC/DC were on a roll. Buoyed by the success of Highway To Hell, it looked like they were going to finally achieve their plan of world domination. However in February tragedy struck and Bon Scott died after a night of carousing. Determined to keep going (with the blessings of Bon's parents), AC/DC wasted no time in recruiting Geordie vocalist Brian Johnson into the fold. They then went to the famed Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas with producer John ... [read the rest]
Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)
After 40 years, Their Satanic Majesties Request easily remains the most controversial album of the Rolling Stones' long career. Disowned by all of the surviving band members and a good number of the fans, it is only recently that it has slowly began to become a underground Stones Classic. Recorded under extremely difficult circumstances over the course of 1967, it has unjustly suffered comparisons to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper. It easily the band's most eclectic record ... [read the rest]
Jimi's drummer of choice rewrote the rock and roll drumming rulebook
Mitch Mitchell — the last survivor of The Experience — rejoined Jimi, Noel and Chas on November 12th. He was 62 years old, and the first reports suggest that he went peacefully in his sleep, of 'natural causes'. Coming as it did, just a few days after finishing my review of their debut recording, the news has hit me with all the force the trio habitually exerted. Quite simply, Mitchell was one of the greatest players to have ever picked up sticks. Why else did Hendrix make him a Rainbow Gypsy as The Experience ... [read the rest]
by Jimi Hendrix
I've been hedging on Hendrix for a long while now. Substantially more than ninety-nine-and-one-half days, that's for sure. Since I first came across the nerdsite, it's amazed me that no-one's risen to the challenge. Perhaps, like me, a lack of technical instrumental knowledge has caused everyone to balk at reviewing the guitarist by whom all others are measured, with whom any other player dreams to be mentioned in the same breath, old stagers and young pretenders alike. Jimi ... [read the rest]
There were (again) different versions of this Stones album in the US and the UK with the same title, though different covers. This one is the American and — this time — the international version, being released in most if not all European countries too. It was released in the spring of 1965. This version of Out Of Our Heads includes the massive hits "The Last Time" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", and among the other tracks are some fantastic versions ... [read the rest]