nick drake
Chris Blackwell: The Man, the Myths and the Legends
The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond, the newly released Gallery Books memoir from pioneering music executive and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, would have been an amazing read even if it had stopped before Blackwell discovered a teenage Steve Winwood blowing minds in a London club in 1964, happened upon a struggling Jamaican musician named Bob Marley in the early 1970s or overcame initial doubts about the commercial potential of a nascent Irish rock group named U2 and signed it to a record contract. Indeed, Blackwell’s early years growing up between Jamaica and London feature one “I can’t believe this really happened” anecdote after another, from being punched by actor Errol Flynn in a jealous rage to befriending James Bond author Ian Fleming and being hired as a production ...
The 50 Best Albums of 1972
Last year, when helping assemble SPIN‘s 50 Best Albums of 1971, I wondered if that year could have been popular music’s absolute peak. Now I’m asking myself that same question all over again. As I built a spreadsheet for 1972, gathering our writers’ votes alongside my own weird choices, I was once again struck by how many bronze-cast classics came out that year: LPs from David Bowie, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, The Allman Brothers Band, Yes, Stevie Wonder, Roxy Music, and on and on. Run down basically every genre – glam, soul, prog, art rock, Southern rock, metal, folk, MPB — and you’ll find the very best shit, whether eternally famous or sadly obscure. (My poor spreadsheet, swelling each day, originally had hundreds of worthy records. But you have to start chopping eventually.) Here’s wher...
