For reasons which may become clear soon - but not here - I've been revisiting John Cale's music recently. There is so, so much to immerse yourself in that even trying to distill some of that into an hour long selection is a daunting task.
A couple of rules: The Velvet Underground and other collaborations were fair game but had to include John on lead (or at least prominent) vocals. I also stopped at 2012's Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood, so nothing from M:FANS, Cale's 2016 return to Music For A New Society, or Mercy.
With seventeen solo studio albums, singles, live performances, collaborations, The Velvet Underground and more, my 12-song selection neither collects all of the 'hits' and even attempts to cover all of the 'important' albums. More by accident than design, I have been able to broadly represent each decade from the 1960s to the 2010s; more importantly, I think these are all just good songs. If you haven't explored John Cale's music in depth before and this inspires you to, then I'll be a very happy person indeed.
1) Save Us (1975)
2) Overture: A Tourist / A Contact / A Prisoner: John Cale & Bob Neuwirth (1994)
3) Secret Corrida (1996)
4) Mercenaries (Ready For War) (Single Version) (1980)
5) Look Horizon (2003)
6) Broken Bird (Album Version) (1982)
7) Forever Changed: Lou Reed / John Cale (1990)
8) Guts (1975)
9) Hemmingway (2012)
10) Whaddya Mean By That? (Single Version) (2011)
11) The Gift (Album Version): The Velvet Underground (1968)
12) The Endless Plain Of Fortune (Album Version) (1973)
1968: White Light/White Heat: 11
1973: Paris 1919: 12
1975: Helen Of Troy: 1
1975: Slow Dazzle: 8
1980: Mercenaries (Ready For War) EP: 4
1982: Music For A New Society: 6
1990: Songs For Drella: 7
1994: Last Day On Earth: 2
1996: Walking On Locusts: 3
2003: HoboSapiens: 5
2011: Extra Playful EP: 10
2012: Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood: 9
Excellent selection. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ernie!
Delete