Katerinas Magic World

Originally released in 1976, L' Homme À Tête de Chou is Serge Gainsbourg's second concept record. His first was the stone classic Histoire de Melody Nelson, released five years prior. Translating as "The Man with the Cabbage Head," L' Homme À Tête de Chou is a brutal story of lust and obsession in which, over the course of the album, the narrator falls in love with a black shampoo girl (Marilou), beats her to death with a fire extinguisher, and ends up in a psychiatric hospital. Featuring lush orchestration and a variety of influences from reggae to funk to country, L' Homme À Tête de Chou is a crucial part of the musical history of one of France's most famous and certainly most controversial stars.
Tracks
1. L' Homme À Tête De Chou
2. Chez Max Coiffur Pour Hommes
3. Marilou Reggae
4. Transit À Marilou
5. Flash Forward
6. Aéroplanes
7. Premiers Symptômes
8. Ma Lou Marilou
9. Variations Sur Marilou
10. Meurtre À L'extincteur
11. Marilou Sous La Neige
12. Lunatic Asylum
Listen

During 1967 and 1968, the Bee Gees became an international phenomenon with three albums and many more singles of folky balladry, most of them smashes. That stopped when their lavish 1969 double LP, Odessa, produced zero hits; guitarist Vince Melouney left, and Robin Gibb temporarily followed suit. The stereo (disc 1) and mono (disc 2) mixes included in the three-disc reissue of this disruptive opus present the Gibb brothers' arrangements at their most opulent: The string-laden instrumentals and soulful baroque pop evoke the splendor of the Moody Blues. And a third disc with demos suggests the unpolished sprawl of the Beatles' White Album. Stripped of window dressing, baubles like "Melody Fair" prove the Gibbs' effusive melodies and aching harmonies are ends in themselves.
Tracks
Disc 1
1. Odessa (City On The Black Sea)
2. You'll Never See My Face Again
3. Black Diamond
4. Marley Purt Drive
5. Edison
6. Melody Fair
7. Suddenly
8. Whisper Whisper
9. Lamplight
10. Sound Of Love
11. Give Your Best
12. Seven Seas Symphony
13. With All Nations (International Anthem)
14. I Laugh In Your Face
15. Never Say Never Again
16. First Of May
17. The British Opera
Disc 2
1. Odessa (City On The Black Sea)
2. You'll Never See My Face Again
3. Black Diamond
4. Marley Purt Drive
5. Edison
6. Melody Fair
7. Suddenly
8. Whisper Whisper
9. Lamplight
10. Sound Of Love
11. Give Your Best
12. Seven Seas Symphony
13. With All Nations (International Anthem)
14. I Laugh In Your Face
15. Never Say Never Again
16. First Of May
17. The British Opera
Disc 3
1. Odessa [Demo] - (previously unreleased)
2. You'll Never See My Face Again [Alternate Mix] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
3. Black Diamond [Demo] - (previously unreleased)
4. Marley Purt Drive [Alternate Mix] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
5. Barbara Came To Stay - (previously unreleased)
6. Edison [Alternate Mix] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
7. Melody Fair [Demo] - (previously unreleased)
8. Melody Fair [Alternate Mix] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
9. Suddenly [Alternate Mix] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
10. Whisper Whisper [Part Two] [Alternate Version] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
11. Lamplight [Demo] - (previously unreleased)
12. Lamplight [Alternate Version] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
13. Sound Of Love [Alternate Mix] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
14. Give Your Best [Alternate Mix] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
15. Seven Seas Symphony [Demo] - (previously unreleased)
16. With All Nations (International Anthem) [Vocal Version] - (previously unreleased)
17. I Laugh In Your Face [Alternate Mix] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
18. Never Say Never Again [Alternate Mix] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
19. First Of May [Demo] - (previously unreleased)
20. First Of May [Alternate Mix] - (previously unreleased, alternate take)
21. Nobody's Someone - (previously unreleased)
22. Pity - (previously unreleased)
23. Odessa Promotional Spot - (previously unreleased)

Despite the production's rough edges, the limited budget that fostered it, and the feeling that it sounds more like several A-sides and a couple decent B-sides thrown together than a singular body, Jeopardy is a caustic jolt of a debut that startles and fascinates. With the plaintive intro of the rhythm section, a spidery guitar, and incidental synth wobbles (which all sounds surprisingly Neu!-like), "I Can't Escape Myself" begins the album unassumingly enough until reaching the terse, one-line chorus that echoes the title of the song; suddenly, from out of the blue, all the instruments make a quick, violent, collective stab and retreat back into the following verse as singer Adrian Borland catches his breath. The reverb placed on his voice is heightened at just the right moments to exacerbate the song's claustrophobic slant. The ecstatic onward rush of "Heartland" forms the back end of a dynamic one-two opening punch, with a charging rhythm and blaring keyboards leading the way. It seems to be the spawn of XTC and U2, just as giddy as something from the former (think Go 2) and almost as anthemic as something from the latter (think Boy). Much later on, near the end, "Unwritten Law" comes along as one of the Sound's best mid-tempo mood pieces -- one of their greatest strengths. It also shows how much a simple shading of synth can affect a song, as it affects it with a melancholic smear that no other instrument could possibly provide. In all honesty, they weren't breaking any new ground here. Their influences were just as apparent as the ones donned by the other bands who inhabited similar post-punk territory. Smart journalists of the time -- meaning the ones who truly listened and were aware of the band's past -- knew well enough that the Sound belonged in the same league as the bands they were compared to and not somewhere in the bushes. Hardly coattail jockeying, the Sound were developing and growing alongside them. If you're thinking this sounds like someone's telling you that you need Jeopardy just as much as you need Kilimanjaro or Unknown Pleasures or Crocodiles, you're right again.
Tracks
1 I Can't Escape Myself 3:54
2 Heartland 3:33
3 Hour of Need 3:01
4 Words Fail Me 2:57
5 Missiles 5:26
6 Heyday 3:01
7 Jeopardy 3:37
8 Night Versus Day 3:15
9 Resistance 2:47
10 Unwritten Law 3:39
11 Desire 3:13
12 Heartland (live)
13 Brute Force (live)
14 Jeopardy (live)
15 Coldbeat (live)
Listen

Waiting for a Miracle is a sorcerous first album, at least once it sinks in, after short-to-long phases of puzzlement, bemusement, and fascination. Its songs of romantic ruin, paranoia, and doubt are spare, inelastic, and ceaselessly on edge. Even when the songs are at their bounciest and most alluring, they have an insular and alien quality. The instruments are played with intrepid simplicity, but when they're heard as one, they sound peculiar and complex -- the results aren't unlike slow, stern spins on Pere Ubu's "The Modern Dance" and "Street Waves" -- albeit with insidious lyrical hooks that are innocuous to the eye and startling to the ear, like "This is total war, girl," "Sometimes I feel out of control," and "I can't relax 'cause I haven't done a thing and I can't do a thing 'cause I can't relax." Acting as something like a minimalist garage band with one foot in the past and the other in the future, with Andy Peake's memory-triggering organ bleats offset by structural abnormalities and twists, the band does come across as a little timid from time to time, unsure of how far to take its uniqueness, but it's only another factor that fosters the album's insistent nerviness. "Total War," a razor-sharp examination of a relationship snapping under the pressure of buried mutual contempt, threatens to stop as often as it appears to be on the verge of taking off, carries a circular arrangement, and provides no release. It was the album's "other" single, nearly as conventions-stripped as PiL's more venomous "Flowers of Romance" (released the following year). "Independence Day," on the other hand, gave the band its greatest commercial success, wrapping all the band's strengths in one concise package, from the brilliantly paced shifts between the sparse and the dense to the balance between the direct and the indirect. Apart from the barren, ominous kiss-off that is "Postcard," each of the remaining songs sound like singles, even if they never had a chance at putting the band on Top of the Pops. (This is a band that called itself "doomsteady" with a hint of seriousness, after all.) While there are crucial differences that reveal themselves after deep listening, this album can be appreciated by anyone touched by other maverick post-punk albums released the same year, such as Joy Division's Closer, Associates' The Affectionate Punch, Magazine's The Correct Use of Soap, the Sound's Jeopardy, and Simple Minds' Empires and Dance.
Tracks
1 Missing in Action
2 'Baby'
3 Independence Day
4 Waiting for a Miracle
5 Total War
6 On the Beach
7 Monkey Pilot
8 Real Story
9 Map of the World
10 Postcard
11 Home is the Range
12 We Were
Listen