Moon Safari - Air

Moon Safari is the debut album from French duo Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel AKA Air. Released in 1998 it is a classic electronic album. It debuted on the UK album charts at number 5 and is described by themselves as “Space Pop”

Moon Safari is an eclectic mix of synth-pop, acoustic guitars and faux-string arrangements often reminiscent of 60 French pop or the soundtracks to French Films of the same era. Sexy Boy was the first single taken from the album and the one that really sold it. Its distorted synth hook drives the track along, mixing the gritty sound with gurgling beeps to great effect. The Sexy Boy video was directed by Mike Mills (who also designed the sleeve) and details the fantasy adventure of a flying monkey who goes into space, as dreamt up by Air while playing with a stuffed toy in New York. Fantastic stuff!!!

Kelly Watch The Stars (Ok the title kind of gives it away) is a spacey song. Again the electro synth sound of the two boys keeps the song moving along but the piano section gives it a warm natural feel. Beautiful, minimalist with fantastic spacious guitars, All I Need features vocals from American singer songwriter Beth Hirsch. She appears again on You Make It Easy a soft sensual love song featuring wave sounds where once again Air show their gift at exploring the melodic side of electronic music. La Femme D’Argent is a warm bassy song with more synth schenagry throughout, a slow chill out song that builds to a wonderful climax, it's a signature Air song, and one the evening Live Drive crew can’t get enough of!

Moon Safari is the future set to the sounds of the past. It is French pomp given a new wave makeover. It is romantic and eloquent without having to say much. While the rest of the electronic world were busy getting there BPM’s to go faster Air were slowing it all down to produce a masterpiece of irresistible electro pop chill out music.

Track listing
1. La Femme D'Argent
2. Sexy Boy
3. All I Need - (with Beth Hirsch)
4. Kelly Watch The Stars
5. Talisman
6. Remember
7. You Make It Easy - (with Beth Hirsch)
8. Ce Matin La
9. New Star In The Sky :: Chanson Pour Solal
10. Le Voyage De Penelope

Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll battle for position throughout 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
Rick Rubin produced, Gus Van Sant designed the cover Art and The Red Hot Chili Peppers delivered a smash hit 5th album. Heavy radio play sent the LA underground band mainstream, scoring chart success with Under The Bridge, Give It Away, Breaking The Girl and Suck My Kiss. The Chillis had been through some choppy changes, their original guitarist died of an overdose, the drummer quit, leaving Singer Anthony Keidis and Bassist Flea in search of new band mates. They found them in John Frusciante (guitar) and Chad Smith (drums) The combo worked, the bands sound became much more controlled easier on the ear (Rubins influence?), and therefore gained heavy radio rotation. Frusciante subsequently left, mid album tour, hating the media attention the band were attracting.
Troubles aside, this is the album that put The Peppers on the world map and it's rockin' as Thursdays Critical Junction.

Track listing
1. Power Of Equality, The
2. If You Have To Ask
3. Breaking The Girl
4. Funky Monks
5. Suck My Kiss
6. I Could Have Lied
7. Mellowship Slinky In B Major
8. Righteous & The Wicked, The
9. Give It Away
10. Blood Sugar Sex Magik
11. Under The Bridge
12. Naked In The Rain
13. Apache Rose Peacock
14. Greeting Song, The
15. My Lovely Man
16. Sir Psycho Sexy
17. They're Red Hot

The Joshua Tree - U2

U2 formed in 1976 when Larry Mullen pinned a notice to his secondary school notice board seeking fellow musicians in the hopes of putting a band together. Starting out as ”The Larry Mullen Adventure” (that name lasted a day), they went through a few more name and line-up changes until band members Mullen, Bono (Paul Hewson), The Edge (Dave Evans) and Adam Clayton Jr. settled on the name U2, so chosen for its ambiguity, as well as the fact that it was the name the four members disliked the least. By the mid-1980s, the band had become a top international act, noted for their stadium anthems, Bono's impassioned lyrics, and The Edge's much-copied layered guitar sound. However, their success as a live act was notably greater than their success as a record-selling band. Or at least that was the case until the release of their 1987 album, “The Joshua Tree”, brought them mega-stardom.

U2 had only just finished touring their previous album, 1984’s “The Unforgettable Fire”, when they set to work on their follow-up. They had no new songs written either; they would just get together at bass player Adam Clayton’s house, and wait to see what happened. The band rehearsals and jamming sessions that started off each day culminated in U2’s fifth studio album, released on March 9, 1987. The Joshua Tree – named as a “tribute” to, rather than a “metaphor” for, America - is considered by many to be the band’s best album and one of the best rock albums of all time. Collaborating a second time with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, who the band had first worked with on The Unforgettable Fire, it went straight to No.1 in the UK charts and became the fastest selling album in British chart history. It also spent nine weeks at the top of the US chart. The Album won the band their first two Grammy Awards and they have since gone on to win a total of twenty-two, more than any other rock band.

Sadly, the original tree featured on the cover photos died around the year 2000…....

According to Bono in a 2001 BBC TV documentary, the track order for “The Joshua Tree” was the brainchild of Scottish singer Kirsty MacColl. She put her favorite song first, then her second favorite, and so on.

Track listing
1. Where The Streets Have No Name
2. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
3. With Or Without You
4. Bullet The Blue Sky
5. Running To Stand Still
6. Red Hill Mining Town
7. In God's Country
8. Trip Through Your Wires
9. One Tree Hill
10. Exit
11. Mothers Of The Disappeared

Blue - Joni Mitchell

This is truly an Album no record collection should be without. Joni Mitchells 4th it was released in 1971, after she had spent some time traveling around Europe and It's a rich collection of 10 intricate, emotional, personal and poetic tracks. Give Blue a chance, it will work it's way under your skin and stay with you.

If the lyrics are sometimes complex, the arrangements are simple, on the celebratory Carey, Stephen Stills provides guitar accompaniment, and James Taylor lends a hand on California, All I Want, and A Case Of You, a song which also contains what is probably my favourite lyric of all time, - Just before our love got lost, you said "I am as constant as the Northern Star" and I said, "Constantly in the darkness, where's that? If you want me I'll be in the Bar" - Relevatory, funny and sad at the same time, Blue is full of lyrical gems, emotional insights and unique melody.

Track listing
1. All I Want
2. My Old Man
3. Little Green
4. Carey
5. Blue
6. California
7. This Flight Tonight
8. River
9. Case Of You, A
10. Last Time I Saw Richard, The

The Stranger - Billy Joel

Billy Joel’s 5th studio album released in 1977 proved that he was more than just The Piano Man. Produced by Columbia records maestro Phil Ramone. Ramone has produced everyone from Marilyn Monroe (singing Happy Birthday to John F Kennedy) to George Micheal and Luciano Pavaroti. It was with his use of modern recording techniques and Joel’s ability to write flawless pop gems that the album came together in such a fantastic way.

Where to begin, well lets start with the cover, a bizarre concoction with Billy sitting on a bed staring at a mask which is lying on a pillow. The early advertising for the record had only this image on it with no other words, it was as stroke of genius. The album lived up to the adverts and was an end to end pop masterpiece.

The big hitters on this album are, Movin Out (Anthony’s Song), The Stranger, Just the Way You Are, Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, Vienna, She’s Always A Woman and Only The Good Die Young. Bizarrely

The Stranger is actually about the Id. The part of the Human Psyche where desire and primal instincts are held, it was of course a big hit in Japan. Just The Way You Are was a birthday gift to Joel’s first wife Elizabeth Weber. Joel’s was actually going to leave the song off the album and actually doesn’t like playing it. Another song She’s always a Woman is also about his first wife, who used to be married to Billy Joes drummer at the time. Joel had an affair with the woman and was so tormented by it that he drank furniture polish and guess who rushed him to the hospital, his drummer.

Scene From An Italian Restaurant is actually three different tunes put together, it is Joel’s Longest studio recording coming at over seven and a half minutes long. It is a fan favourite and one of his greatest songs and actually has something of a Beatles Feel to it. Only The Good Die Young believe or not was controversial at the time due to its lyrical content where a boy tries to seduce a catholic girl and was banned form a number of stations in the U.S. This only served to shoot the album further up the carts. Billy Joel actually received a threat of assassination before a concert in St Louis if he played the song. He went on and played the song twice. Vienna a personal favourite is about growing old, Joel was visiting his father in Vienna when he saw an old woman sweeping the streets. Billy was appalled by this but his father told him the woman had pride and was doing a service, Joel realised how America pushed aside its elderly and strips them of their purpose and worth.

It may be sentimental, it may be a guily pleasure it may in fact be the greatest album Joel released but what it is is a superb album which sounds fresher and edgier now that most of what charts today.

Track listing

1. Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
2. Stranger, The
3. Just The Way You Are
4. Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
5. Vienna
6. Only The Good Die Young
7. She's Always A Woman
8. Get It Right The First Time
9. Everybody Has A Dream