British Steel – Judas Priest (1980)

British Steel is the sixth album by the band Judas Priest. It was their first album to appear in the US Billboard chart and it reached #4 in the UK Pop Album chart. British Steel is perhaps the best example of what the new wave of british heavy metal was all about.

British Steel was recorded at Tittenhurst Park, home of  John Lennon and later Ringo Starr. This album has a more accessible and commercial flavor then its predecessors in both music and lyrics.

Everything that defines 80’s heavy metal is included here. Long gone are the last traces of blues, characteristic of the genre in the past. The music here sits comfortably between the groove of AC/DC and the sophistication of Iron Maiden. It’s packed full of unforgettable riffs on driving beats. Of course Breaking The Law and Living After Midnight steal the show. Grinder, Metal Gods, Rapid Fire, The Rage and Steeler are other very strong tracks. United is perhaps the only weak moment.

British Steel was remastered in 2001 with bonus tracks, definitely the way to go.

British Steel is unquestionably the metal gods at their peak and a historical landmark in heavy metal music. I definitely recommend starting here for a first taste of the band.

5 out of 5 stars.

Mr. Roboto

Abbey Road – The Beatles (1969)

Abbey Road was the last album recorded by The Beatles (Let It Be was the last album released). It went straight to number one after its release and stayed at the top for 17 weeks! The Rolling Stone magazine voted it the 14th greatest album of all time. It’s amazing how a falling apart band is able to release such a great record.

It’s very difficult to choose a favorite Beatles album. They’re all perfect but I have to say Abbey Road has the best production of them all. Of course a lot of the credits go the George Martin. Also, Alan Parsons was credited as assistant engineer. Abbey Road and Let It Be were the only two albums recorded on a 8-track machine recorder instead of the old 4-track recorders.

I’m not going to highlight any songs from this album. All I have to say is that the Beatles are the cream of the crop and their music is timeless. You can’t go wrong any of it.

The photograph on the album cover is perhaps the most famous shot of the band. It helped propagate the “Paul is dead” urban legend. It also made the zebra crossing a tourist attraction. Interesting to note that the parked Volkswagen beetle had its license plate stolen several times because of the photo. Now the car is on a display in a museum.

With regards to the Beatles, I don’t have to tell you that any of their albums are essential recordings, right? The whole Beatles catalog has been finally remastered through a meticulously 4-year process. That’s the version of the Abbey Road I recommend to own.

5 out of 5 stars.

Mr. Roboto

Fly Like An Eagle & Book Of Dreams – Steve Miller Band (1977-78)

Fly Like An Eagle and Book Of Dreams are the brainchild of american guitarist and songwriter Steve Miller. They’re the definition of album rock and a perfect example of 70’s classic rock. I estimate that I have probably listened to these albums at least a couple of hundred times. They’re that good. In fact, I don’t know which one is better because they were both recorded at the same time and even considered to be released as a double album. That’s why I’m reviewing both together.

Steve Miller had the most incredible guitar schooling during his early years. At a young age, he had lessons from both T-Bone Walker and Les Paul. They were friends of the family! He also had jam sessions with Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy. During his early twenties his band became the backing band for Chuck Berry. What a incredible resume!

With this strong blues foundation coupled with the psychedelic movement of the 60’s he started his own brand of space rock that lasted until the early 70’s. At that point, he decided to drop the psychedelic tendencies and go a little more pop and simplistic with The Joker. It wasn’t until Fly Like An Eagle and Book Of Dreams that his vision became fully realized.

The songs from both albums were recorded in several sessions with different musicians at a couple of different places. There was a point that Miller almost canned the whole project from dissatisfaction. In the end his persistence paid off. Fly Like An Eagle, Take The Money And Run, Rock’n Me, Jet Airliner, Jungle Love, True Fine Love, Swingtown, Serenade, The Stake, Dance Dance Dance, Wild Mountain Honey, Winter Time are remarkable classic rock radio staples we all know.

Fly Like An Eagle 30th Anniversary deluxe package is the way to go. It has remastered sound with bonus tracks and a dvd concert. I own a re-mastered import of Book of Dreams. Hopefully this album will also get a domestic deluxe treatment soon.

Fly Like An Eagle and Book Of Dreams are albums that you can most defintely listen to all the way through without skipping anything. So make you also don’t skip these two albums from your classic rock collection!

5 out of 5 stars.

Mr. Roboto

Breakfast In America – Supertramp (1979)

Breakfast In America is the mega-smash release by the group Supertramp. In the face of internal turmoil, the band hit the big time and achieved massive commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic. Breakfast In America became their biggest selling album with more than 18 million copies sold worldwide.

Despite having roots in progressive rock, Supertramp created material here that sounds very pop-oriented with very little self indulgence. In fact, I like to look at Supertramp as a pop band with prog rock leanings. Besides pop and rock, I also hear a tad of jazz here and there. To me, the most distinctive sound feature on the album is the use of the Wurlitzer electric piano on a number of songs.

Breakfast In America has very few weak moments. The pop hits The Logical Song, Goodbye Stranger, Take The Long Way Home and Breakfast In America definitely stand out but this is still a nice album to listen to all the way through.

Keep in mind that this album has been re-mastered a couple of times. The latest revision is more desirable because it has the original album art restored.

If you have good taste in music Breakfast In America sounds delicious and can only be served by Supertramp. Bon Appétit!

5 out of 5 stars.

Mr. Roboto

Rising – Rainbow (1976)

Rainbow is one of the most under appreciated hard rock bands of the 70’s, always in the shadow of Deep Purple because of shared similarities. Still, they had undeniable talent and held their own very well. Rising is the band’s second album and perhaps their proudest moment. The number one issue of Kerrang voted Rising as the #1 hard rock album of all time!

Rainbow’s debut was a mixed bag. So this time around, Blackmore decided to re-vamp the band and replace almost all the musicians with the exception of Dio. This line up was much more talented than the previous one and it shows on the recording. Note that the album was produced by Deep Purple’s engineer Martin Birch.

Rising clocks at around 34 minutes and only has six tracks, a little on the short side. However, every single song here is a winner with no fillers. It features a nice balance of straight rockers and longer more involved pieces. I really like Tarot Woman, Run With The Wolf, Startruck and the 8-minute long masterpiece Stargazer featuring the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

The first CD releases have a slight different mix of the album. Is not the same mix as the original LP. The 1999 remasters have fixed this problem. As always, go for the remastered version of the album.

Rising is an excellent album and can stand next to anything from Deep Purple’s catalog. You must own it!

5 out of 5 stars.

Mr. Roboto

Kiss – Kiss (1974)

Kiss is the debut album from the american band of the same name. Along with Destroyer, this is their best studio album. Without the presence of a hit single or any radio support. Kiss sold around 75,000 copies soon after its release. How did they do it? Word of mouth by non-stop performances. Of course, great music had something to do with it as well…

This album is a classic example of what 70’s hard rock is all about. It’s full of catchy melodies and memorable guitar riffs with nothing too intellectual or provoking. Just how it should be, plain, unadulterated rock and roll.

Along with the rest of the band’s catalog, this album has been digitally remastered. The track listing is amazing. Crammed full of songs that became concert staples and included in many anthologies. There are seven special songs: Strutter, Nothin’ To Loose, Firehouse, Cold Gin, Deuce, Black Diamond and 100,000 Years. Interesting note, before the band had any record deal, five of these songs were included the band’s original demo tape. This tape was produced by non other than Eddie Kramer. The studio owed the band a favor for some unpaid work they’ve done. It might be interesting to hunt down this tape.

The album cover has a couple of interesting stories. The band always did their own makeup by themselves but Peter Criss tried using a professional instead for the cover photo. It looked awful! Obviously he went back to doing the make up his own way. Another story is that Ace Frehley, trying to impress the other guys, spray painted his hair silver to look cool. It took weeks for that to come out and he had a skin reaction to it.

Kiss sound just as fresh today as it did back then. You can’t miss this album from the hottest band in the land.

5 out of 5 stars.

Mr. Roboto

Moving Pictures – Rush (1981)

Moving Pictures is Rush’s most popular and commercially successful album to date. It best represents a period of the band and it may even be their best album. It sold over four million copies and hit #3 in the U.S.

The band was at the top of their game. It uses the formula of the previous release, Permanent Waves, of radio friendly music but still retaining a progressive edge. This balance worked well and the songs became highly listenable and accessible. I always recommend this album for those that are not big fans of progressive rock. In fact, the music on this album is borderline progressive and crosses over mainstream sometimes.

Like all releases from Rush, the music here is intelligent and entertaining. The first four songs are the radio standards and also more immediate: Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, YYZ and Limelight. The other three songs are the kind that get better and better every time I listen to them. That happens a lot to me when listening to progressive rock music.

A little trivia, the beginning melody on the song YYZ spells its title in Morse code.

Rush’s old catalog has been remastered in 1997 so it’s the way to go. The original cd pressing is missing the first beat of Tom Sawyer by mistake. Always go for the remasters!

The band just recently announced that they will play this album in its entirety on their next tour. This is truly a great album. If you have the slightest interest in the band you can’t miss this one!

5 out of 5 stars.

Mr. Roboto

Jailbreak – Thin Lizzy (1976)

Jailbreak is the sixth studio album by Thin Lizzy and the band’s best and most popular work. The band may have had all the ideas for their trademark sound in the previous album but in my opinion it’s here where they solidify it. It paid off because it became their commercial breakthrough in the U.S.

The overall sound on this album is heavy rock. One of the distinctive factors of the band is the pioneering double edge guitars of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson. Their idea for twin lead guitar solos was very influential with heavy metals bands like Iron Maiden. Also, don’t forget the light touch crooning of Lynott. Nice to hear it in a hard rock band for a change. His poetic lyrics add the icing on the cake. Great songwriting skills!

The songs on this album are killers and I like the strong rockers best. Still, I like to listen the album all the way through. The hits are The Boys Are Back In Town, Jailbreak and The Cowboy Song. But Warriors, Emerald and Angels From The Coast are equally just as great.

The only song I don’t care much for is Running Back because of its arrangement using keyboards and occasional saxophone. I don’t think it fits the sound of the album. Also, Robertson doesn’t get to play on it because the producer dropped his parts in favor of the extra musicians’ parts.

As far as I know, the only digitally remastered version of this album is from 1996 available only in the U.K.

Overall this is an exceptional album and if you want to buy only one from Thin Lizzy this has to be it.

5 out of 5 stars.

Mr. Roboto

Are You Experienced? – Jimi Hendrix (1967)

Jimi Hendrix: Are You Experienced? Wow! Unless you live in another planet, this album needs no introduction. For those that are just landing on Earth, run to the store to get a copy. I won’t tell anyone…

Ok, so where do I start? Let’s start with the man himself. I can safely say that this is the most influential guitar album ever released. Well, when you have Jimi Page, Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend, Eric Clapton and hundreds of others bowing to you as a guitar player, I guess that makes you king, right? Now, guitar skills aside, you also get extreme sound innovation. Not just from an engineering point of view (none other than Eddie Kramer was sitting in the engineering booth). The sounds Hendrix got out of his guitar are nothing short of amazing and revelatory, colors never seen before on the sonic image. I guess you can think of guitar playing as Before Hendrix and After Hendrix.

A couple of years ago this album was selected for permanent preservation by the Library of Congress in the U.S. I guess that says enough on historical importance, huh?!?

Purple Haze, Manic Depression, Hey Joe, The Wind Cries Mary, Fire, Foxey Lady, Stone Free and I Don’t Live Today are all here in the same album!  Other highlights include Third Stone From The Sun, Highway Chile and Red House. Gosh, I think the whole album gets airplay on the radio.

The newest remastered deluxe cd is the best version to have. Besides the updated sound, it combines the US and UK version with all the singles in one package.

There’s nothing more you could ask from a classic rock album. Importance. Sound. Influence. Musicianship. Innovation. Songwriting. It’s all here! Have you experienced it?!?

5 out of 5 stars.

Mr. Roboto

Blizzard Of Ozz – Ozzy Osbourne (1980)

Blizzard Of Ozz is Ozzy Osbourne first solo effort after leaving Black Sabbath. To much surprise from the critics, Ozzy was able to re-invent himself and become a star. He was also a capable band leader and excellent judge of talent which really helped out putting a great band together.

Much of the credit is, of course, also due to the late Randy Rhoads. The virtuoso guitar player played a big role in the album’s musical direction and arrangements. Besides an amazing guitar technique, he had an uncanny ability to incorporate classical music into the heavy metal compositions. Rhoads also had a huge impact on a new generation of guitar players. I believe I can safely say that Blizzard Of Ozz and Van Halen’s first album set new musicianship standards for 80’s heavy metal guitar.

Crazy Train and Mr. Crowley became instant classics. There are other songs just as strong though. You can’t forget I Don’t Know, Steal Away, Suicide Solution and Revelation (Mother Earth).

I do not recommend the 2002 remastered cd version of this album. Besides the remastering process, the album was also remixed and some tracks re-recorded. Ozzy has some personal issues with the old band members and used his current band to replace the original bass and drums tracks on the album. Sacrilege!!!

The 1995 remaster is just fine or you can wait a little longer and buy the new upcoming 2-disc deluxe edition that is coming out.

Blizzard of Ozz was a revolutionary album and essential to everybody’s collection. All aboard!

5 out of 5 stars.

Mr. Roboto