Advantages: See opinion
Disadvantages: See opinion

...~ ~ So what’s this, you may well ask? A music review from the “mad cabbie”!!!! Am I seeing right? Well, believe it or believe it not, the only reason I have never written in this category before is because no matter how hard I try to attempt to get across what I want to convey, it all seems to come out all cock-eyed. But listening to one of my favourite singers on the CD-Rom last night while I surfed around the Web, I realised that I couldn’t put off the evil day any longer. ~ ~ Some of you will probably remember a song from the late 1970’s called “Baker Street”, by a Scot’s singer called Gerry Rafferty. If you listen to the radio at all you can hardly have missed it, as even now there is hardly a day passes that it is not played at some point. I believe there was even a cover... Read review

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Advantages: A Piece of Music History
Disadvantages: None

...If you believe that the Sixties produced nothing musically beyond bland pop, then you have obviously never heard of the original power trio Cream. Formed in 1966 and breaking apart with all the force of a volcanic eruption less than three years later, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton are owed a huge debt of gratitude by every progressive rock and metal band that followed for opening the public’s minds and ears to the possibility of rock as an art form. Featuring nine studio tracks and four live performances, “Wheels of Fire” has as much power today as it had when it was first released, and is for me the best of their three full-length albums. If part of the National Curriculum were devoted to rock, this would be required listening. Entire schools would hear and hear about Baker’s stupendous natural talent on the drum kit... Read review

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Advantages: Amazing music, opens up your mind
Disadvantages: I can't read all of the song titles!

...Mercury Rev have been one of the best American bands of the last fifteen years. Going through many changes, both in personnel and musical style, they have consistently produced quality mind bending albums, but have had relatively little success in shifting records until the last few years, with songs such as ‘Goddess On A Hiway’ and ‘The Dark Is Rising’ reaching the top 40. The music of Mercury Rev can be broadly described in one of two categories: With vocalist David Baker, or after David Baker. The latter category is the band’s newer music, with the albums ‘See You On The Other Side’, ‘Deserter’s Songs’ and ‘All Is Dream’. The sound of these albums can be described as tuneful, melodic and often soft, with about every instrument you can think of being used. ‘Yerself Is Steam’ However, belongs in the two albums in the ‘with... Read review

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Advantages: The Best Recording Ever
Disadvantages: None

...listen (and I’m on my third consecutive playing as I type!) Written much earlier than the Cello Concerto, in 1899, the Sea Pictures are scored for full orchestra and alto voice, in this case, Dame Janet Baker. There are 5 pieces, all of which summon up the sea quite effectively, while maintaining Elgar’s distinctive ‘English’ sound. 1. Sea-Slumber song. The first song in the set is lilting and low, and Janet Baker’s bell-like like alto voice is gentle and passionate, well-balanced at both ends of the spectrum. All the songs are in English and the CD booklet provides the words, so you could have a go a singing along yourself. But you’ll sound pants- Baker makes it sound easy, but of course it isn’t. 2. In Haven. Are you feeling safe? This is a simple, plaintive melody. Baker sings with a delicately... Read review

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Advantages: You get to hear the original Supergroup reformed
Disadvantages: The album shows what good music some of us missed played live.

...Eric Clapton is my favourite guitarist not only for his longevity but for the skill in his guitar playing. He with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker reform in 2005 for a series of Concerts initially at the Royal Albert Hall but then going world wide for a tour. I saw Eric Clapton with Blind Faith at one of the early free concerts in Hyde Park in the late sixties, I think june 1969, as a teenager so was quite upset that I missed the Albert Hall Concerts especially as one fell on my birthday 5th May 2007. However I first recorded the concert from TV and then was bought the album and DVD the Christmas following it's release. The concert is magical. There are three 60 year old rockers who hadn't played all together in a band for forty years. Playing the songs as the did all those years ago. They play, in my own personal opinion, better than... Read review

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