MIKE OLDFIELD
Not for Branson: Oldfield's turbulent time at Virgin Records
40 years ago Mike Oldfield entered Richard Branson's semi-finished studio The Manor. In 1972/73 he recorded his rock-historical album "Tubular Bells" there. The surprise success laid the foundation for Branson's Virgin Empire. Before 20 the business relationship between Virgin Music and the musician of the century came to an end - Oldfield and the label boss hadn't been friends for a long time.
PETER GABRIEL
Autohemotherapy
In 2010 Peter Gabriel suddenly swore away everything that had been his musical recognition value until then with a minimalistically orchestrated cover album. With the exception of his voice. The sequel "New Blood" is the reverse of "Scratch My Back": Gabriel interprets Gabriel. Again without samples and guitars, but with support from daughter Melanie.
STEVE HACKETT
Life after death
According to him you can set the clock, or at least the calendar: Steve Hackett presents an album every two years on average. After the furious "Out Of The Tunnel's Mouth" now the very emotional "Beyond The Shrouded Horizon", with which the indestructible musician underlines: Hackett is a class of his own.
PAUL SIMON | ART GARFUNKEL
To friendship!
43 years ago, Simon & Garfunkel sang about what it would be like to sit together on a park bench in New York at the age of 70, still in close friendship. Now the time has come: Paul Simon celebrated his 70th birthday on 13 October, Art Garfunkel will follow on 5 November. A wonderful occasion to review the lives of two people who seem to be tied to each other.
STING
Never with the calm
On 2 October the eternally juvenile-looking ex-police man turned 60. 25 years ago Sting started his impressive solo career. Now she reviews the box "25 Years" on three CDs and one DVD. We also remember stations on the path of the restless.
PAIN OF SALVATION
The long and salty road
Pain Of Salvation wouldn't be Pain Of Salvation if they didn't add a new surprising twist to their impressive musical work with every release. With the radical readjustment to "Road Salt One" (2010), however, the Swedes did not meet with enthusiasm everywhere. But on the twin album "Road Salt Two" guitarist/vocalist Daniel Gildenlöw continues to conjure up the spirit of the seventies.
BETH HART & JOE BONAMASSA When
Joe met Beth
Joe Bonamassa meets Beth Hart. East Coast meets West Coast. "Don't Explain" is the soulful result of the meeting of the master guitarist from Utica, NY, and the vocal powerhouse from LA. On this one they present explosive cover versions. Hart sometimes had to nibble at the selection of pieces by artists such as Etta James, Bill Withers or Gil Scott-Heron.
THE HISTORY OF THE PROGRESSIVE ROCK,
PART 6 Germany (Part I/II)
The progressive fever raged in West Germany with delay. But before that, a style of rock had developed there that had not existed in Great Britain or the USA: Krautrock gave important impulses to German progressive rock. The decisive influences for Eloy, Grobschnitt, Novalis and Co. nevertheless came from outside.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LP (80) & CD (30)!!!!
The eclipsed team remembers its first vinyl/macrolon purchases On September 17, 1931, the first long-playing record intended for the public with 331/3 revolutions per minute was unveiled in New York. Exactly 50 years later, to the month, the Compact Disc was heralding a revolution at the Consumer Electronics Fair in Berlin. Goal: Break the supremacy of the LP. In the past decades, this had prevailed over the audio tape and its little brother, the audio cassette, as the leading storage medium. But now it got tight. The death bell was rung on all sides of the vinyl. More brilliant sound, much less wear and tear, handier format: the record had little to offer audiophile music fans. At the beginning of the nineties the battle seemed to be fought, the CD made of the plastic Makrolon had taken over practically all retreat areas of the black beauty. But salvation approached - from an unexpected side: The hip hop and techno scene continued to stoically rely on vinyl. Survival in these sound reserves was assured. Since the turn of the millennium at the latest, however, the CD has also been on the verge of being released. Together with her former adversary with the two grooves, she has since been fighting against an intangible opponent: for some, the MP3 format is the ultimate storage solution, for others the digitalized evil. Fact is: Every medium has its justification, every one its advantages and disadvantages, every one its followers. In the editorial department, too, the preferences are distributed differently.
Keep the text up! Cult songs and their meaning
THE SMITHS - THERE IS LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT
Lonely, without a real home, without hope, but with a great longing: The final number of The Smiths classic "The Queen Is Dead" tells the story of a young man desperately looking for love. Thus he stands symptomatically for the figures in Morrissey's poetry.
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WEATHER REPORT Mysterious Travellers
When you talk about Weather Report, it's like talking about two completely different bands. And this although the two protagonists Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter were there from beginning to end. The respective qualitative level of the band can be assigned almost one to one to certain creative phases. At the beginning of the seventies, Weather Report came together from various formations of Miles Davis' groups to bundle Zawinul's sound visions and Shorter's compositional complexity. With constantly changing line-ups, the group developed from experimental sound painters to groove guerrillas and discophilic ethno jazzers, which finally dissolved into complacent fusion like a crisp roll in the water. At the height of their commercial success, they fell victim to their overestimation of themselves in the mid-seventies. And yet, almost to the end, there are always individual points that make you sit up and take notice and show that with a little more focus it could have been quite different. However, the inglorious end of the initial pioneers did not change the fact that with their pictorial jazz rock of the early years and the subsequent funk jazz close to the streets, they not only had a decisive influence on the jazz world. Weather Report made sounds that were also gratefully taken up by the pop and rock scene - from Santana to Genesis to Sting.
