Favourite Albums

For the week beginning Sunday 8 July 2007.

1. DIRE STRAITS Brother In Arms
A masterpiece, in every sense of the word. Nine fantastic songs loaded with wit and grace, subtlety and intensity, beauty and admonition, all awash in Mark Knopfler and Neil Dorfsman's supremely immaculate production. At the time the best-selling lp ever in Great Britain, nine weeks at number one in America, and an international sensation. I could look at the otherworldly beauty of the National guitar on the front and back cover forever.
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/on_second_thought/dire-straits-brothers-in-arms.htm
http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?res=9404E5D9153BF937A3575AC0A963948260

2. SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND
Time stand still. The Beatles attempt at escaping the horror that their stardom had become, as well as the suffocating mundanity of everyday existence. Pop culture, especially music, has become so segregated by genre that its now difficult to conceive just how broad a spectrum of society was touched by this most ambitious and seminal of albums. Number one for fifteen glorious weeks in 1967.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6595610/1_sgt_peppers_lonely_hearts_club_band

3. XTC Apple Vinyls
An ultra-limited edition box of 13 7" singles encompassing every single from the Apple Venus and Wasp Star lps. Also includes three non-album sides. Orchestral and infectious, acoustic and electric, all transported onto rich, glossy black vinyl. Thirteen great reasons to get a jukebox.

4. MICHAEL JACKSON History-Past, Present, and Future Book 1
An over-hyped, undervalued double gold disc set from the summer of 1995. Fifteen classic tracks on one disc, fifteen profoundly mesmerizing, ambitious, and ultimately heartbreaking tracks on another disc.
http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/michaeljackson/albums/album/312830/review/5943497/history_past_present_and_future_book_1

5. PHIL SPECTOR Back To Mono
Four discs of the most succulent pop nuggets to ever rest on your plate. These delicious cuts come packaged in an lp style box replete with a gorgeous 90 page oversized book, as well as Spector's famous Christmas album. Coined 'the first tycoon of teen' by none other than Tom Wolfe, Spector ruled the airwaves in the early 1960s with tracks such as The Ronettes' Be My Baby and The Righteous Brothers' masterpiece You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling. And his uniques 'wall of sound' production technique influenced a generation of artists, most notably The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. It all came crashing down in 1966 when Ike and Tina Turner's River Deep, Mountain High, Spector's most magnanimous production, stalled on the charts at number 88. Neither Phil, or pop music, would ever be the same.
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:fcfuxqw5ldse