Keola Beamer "Wooden Boat"

So I had previously wrote a long review of Keola Beamer's album Wooden Boat when I first started this blog last year. I am writing again because I have started to write an entry for all of the albums in my collection. Never the less I am going to try and keep this one short since there was a much longer post earlier.

Anyway, this is Beamer's first album for, Pianist George Winston's, Dancing Cat Records and is certainly Beamer's finest solo recording. As he always does he interchanges instrumental music with songs (lyrics) and weaves new compositions with traditional ones. The album uses the idea of Hawaiian navigation and sailing as a metaphor for traveling through time and generations. This is Beamer's most pop oriented and accessible album. It is an excellent showcase for Beamer's Slack Key Guitar stylings and his ability as a song-smith. Listing individual songs would be pointless as all the tracks are wonderful. It is often overlooked but Wooden Boat is one of Hawaiian Music's finest albums.

Keola and Kapono Beamer "Honolulu City Lights"

Considered by many to be the Greatest Hawaiian Music Album ever made. Honolulu Magazine listed it as number one on their "50 Greatest Hawaii Albums of all Time." While I don't put the album as number one I do think it is one of the top ten best Hawaiian albums.

Released in 1978 "Honolulu City Lights" was an immediate success and catapulted the Beamer Brothers from famous to superstars. The album, and three songs in particular, have become linked to Hawaii's cultural mindset. The title track is still played to this day at numerous occasions and has a timeless quality. The idea of leaving a place but not really wanting to go is a universal theme that is captured in this excellent song. "Only Good Times" is another nostalgic look at better days that became a staple of High School Graduations in Hawaii. "Kaliponi Slack Key" has become the Channel 2 news theme which is played every night over the end credits accompanying images of island residents doing the shaka. The Beamers effortlessly mixe traditional Hawaii songs and motifs like "Kamakani Ka Ili Aloha" with blissful pop "Love you all the Time" throughout the record, mixing traditional Hawaii instruments and Hawaiian Slack Key music stylings with a string orchestra and grand piano. All the elements blend perfectly to make a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience. Produced by 60s crooner Teddy Randazzo and Disc Jockey Tom Moffatt who add a professional and sleek feel to the proceedings. It is certainly one of the best Hawaiian albums and definitely the best the Keola and Kapono's career together, this is also one of the few albums that are still available from the pair, a must for any fan of Hawaiian Music and particularly those who enjoy 1970s style Hawaiian music.

The Beach Boys Pet Sounds

I got this album about ten years ago when my mom called into a radio contest and won it. One of those "If you're the ninth caller you get a prize" radio contests. She won this, Santana's Supernatural and Aida Original Cast Recording. She then gave all three CDs to me and this is the only one of the three that I still have today. Considered by many to be one of the greatest albums ever made, it is on numerous lists of best albums. Sir Paul McCartney has often sighted Pet Sounds as one of his favorite albums and has called it an education in music.

This is truly the beginning of a new era in The Beach Boys career. They gained fame by popularizing, inventing?, Surf Rock which largely concentrated on songs about surfing, the beach, cool cars, and living under the California sun. This type of music was very popular and very fun to listen to but it often was considered very simplistic, don't get me wrong I love songs like "Surfin' USA" and "Help Me Rhonda" but they are very simple in idea and that is what makes them fun. With Pet Sounds The Beach Boys completely abandon all of the Surf ideas that made them popular, but retain their spectacular harmonies. The album is full of introspection and questions about life and the times we are living in. Brian Wilson is in complete control here and many of the songs seem to come from his individual point of view. This is truly The Beach Boys finest album because many of their other albums, particularly those before 1966, are simply song collections, twelve catchy songs packaged onto one disc. Here the thirteen tracks make a whole sound. There are the hit singles "Wouldn't it Be Nice," "Sloop John B," and "God Only Knows" but they fit into a bigger picture that is known as Pet Sounds. They have made more fun albums and much bigger sellers (if you just wants hits the compilation Sounds of Summer is your best bet) but The Beach Boys never made a more innovative or complete album than Pet Sounds.

Back to the Future Soundtrack

I'm not really sure why I bought this Soundtrack album. I remember I bought it in a giant mall near Spokane, Washington in this neat futuristic looking music store. The Back to the Future trilogy was my favorite film series when I was younger, its still one of my favorite movie series, but I used to watch all three movies at least once a month. Maybe more. I know I bought the album because I really like the song "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News. At the time I bought this soundtrack Huey and the News had not put out a decent hits compilation (they have since then), so those are probably the reasons why I bought this CD.

This soundtrack is ok. Aside from "The Power of Love" there is the excellent Huey Lewis song "Back in Time" which was also only available on this soundtrack until recently. There is one song apiece by Lindsey Buckingham and Eric Clapton, both of which are decent but not really memorable. There are the excerpts from Alan Silvestri's excellent score but they only take two tracks on the album. Overall like most soundtrack albums this is not really great without the film to go with it. This is an inessential addition to anyones music collection since the two best songs are now available on Huey Lewis and the News' compilation "Greatest Hits." But Back to the Future Fanatics will probably already own this.

Almost Famous Original Soundtrack

Almost Famous is one of my all time favorite movies, a love song to music, the 1970s and to the innocence and wonder of youth. Based on Writer/Director Cameron Crowe's experiences as a teenaged music journalist for Creem and Rolling Stone Magazines. This is the movie that Crowe had been wanting to make all his life. I once did a video conference with Crowe and he explained that everything in the movie is based on some real event, even the sequence on the airplane happened to his wife Nancy Wilson's band Heart. I am so glad he used the clout he gained with Jerry Maguire to create this film, it is his finest film to date and so far the last good film he has made (Vanilla Sky and Elizabethtown were lukewarm at best), this film also won him an Oscar for Best Screenplay.

Crowe, much like John Hughes and Richard Linklater, has always been able to use popular music on his soundtracks to excellent advantage (Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" is forever linked to the image of John Cusack holding a boom box above his head from Crowe's film Say Anything). Almost Famous is filled to the brim with wonderful 1970s music and there is no way this soundtrack album could include every song (especially since it is only a single disc). It is also very expensive to include certain songs on soundtrack albums. This soundtrack, however, contains a nice sampling of songs from the movie and also a good sampling of, often obscure, songs from the 1970s era. There are big name musicians like Led Zeppelin, The Beach Boys and Elton John yet the songs featured here are not obvious hits for instance "Feel Flows" is an excellent song from The Beach Boys forgotten 1971 album Surf's Up. There are also some lesser known artists such as The Seeds, Clarence Carter and Yes. Many of the songs on this soundtrack are also not really obviously in the movie I can't remember Rod Stewart's "Every Picture Tells a Story" in the film at all. The one thing I wish the soundtrack had more of is the songs performed by the film's fictional band Stillwater, when I saw the film I thought Stillwater was a real group and went searching for their albums. Original songs were written for the band to perform in the movie but only one, "Fever Dog," is contained on this soundtrack.

Overall this is a great companion to a wonderful film, that can be enjoyed with or without the pictures. Much like the main character of the film this soundtrack will help you discover lost gems and the sheer wonder of music.

Aerosmith "Big Ones"

Ok so I bought this Aerosmith Greatest Hits CD at Tower Records in 2001 (seven years after it was released). The reason I purchased it in 2001 is because that was something of a stellar year for Aerosmith. After being inactive and reclusive for nearly four years, with the exception of the hit "Armageddon" theme song "I don't wanna miss a thing," they reappeared like gangbusters in 2001. Aerosmith were everywhere: they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Performed at the Super Bowl Half Time Show, Appeared on MTV and various TV shows almost constantly, VH1 showed Aerosmith videos 24/7, they released the album "Just Push Play" with the hit single "Jaded," and the guy who sat next to me in my Chemistry class was praising Aerosmith daily and even made me a copy of "Just Push Play."

I guess what I am saying is that I caught Aerosmith fever and I ran out to Tower Records and picked up "Big Ones." The CD actually only collects hits from Aerosmith's years at the Geffen record company when they had their late 1980s rebirth till the mid 1990s. So early hits like "Sweet Emotion" and "Walk this Way" are not included. Some of the best Aerosmith songs "Janie's Got a Gun," "Dude (Looks like a Lady)" and my favorite "Love in an Elevator" are here. There are a number of songs that fit in here but are not terribly excellent such as "Walk on Water," "Blind Man" and "Deuces are Wild." In truth I have never been a big fan of Aerosmith they have a number of catchy pop oriented rock songs but I have never really sought out their music. If a song came on the radio or someone is playing them I would not turn away, but I don't crave Aerosmith like many of their fans. While this is a good hits compilation they have released a few others since that are better and honestly I can say I have not listened to this CD since 2001. All I can say is Aerosmith fever got me but it passed, yet the band is still going strong more power to you Aerosmith.

New Start & Ryan Adams "Gold"

After a kind of long and unintentional hiatus I am returning after purchasing a bunch of new albums and with a new game plan. I am going to go through my album collection alphabetically and give my thoughts on each of the albums. So it begins...

The first album is Ryan Adams' "Gold." His best album, if I am concerned. At the time Adams was touted as the next big thing in music and while he never really lived up to that title and at times purposefully avoided it this is still a solid recording. Released just a few weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks the album gained popularity because the first single and lead off track was coincidentally titled "New York, New York." Which is an excellent catchy Stephen Stills style number that propelled the sales with its chorus of "Hell, I still love you New York."

I originally purchased the album because I really liked the "New York, New York" song but I found a number of other great tracks. Upon first listen I only really liked a few songs but something about the sound made me want to listen again and I slowly found that most of the songs are winners. There are, however, three songs right at the album's center that should have been left off: "Enemy Fire" is terrible, "SYLVIA PLATH" is largely forgettable, and the nine minute long "Nobody Girl" is simply average. Other than that the album is pretty solid, Adams stays largely in the Alt-Country style that gained him fame as part of Whiskeytown but here he mixes it with 70s style rock/pop and 90s sounds. While Adams did not live up to the promise of this album, he would not make another consistent album until 2005's "Cold Roses," "Gold" is a fine album and so far Adams' best.