Badly Drawn Boy is another artist — like Jude and Jump, Little Children on recent Random Weekends — who once upon a time seemed like somebody who might be a long-time favorite.
His first album, The Hour of the Bewilderbeest, was a left-field surprise, marrying solid pop hooks to sonic experimentation and a poetic sensibility. His soundtrack for About a Boy captured the film’s tone and featured a couple of memorable singles.
Today’s pick is very similar to yesterday’s in that both are early albums by artists who went on to create much more ambitious and ground-breaking work.
A Hard Day’s Night was the third Beatles album but the first to feature exclusively original material. Billed as the soundtrack to the film of the same name, the album featured all of the new songs in the movie plus additional material written for the film but unused in the final cut.
Before he went electric; before the motorcycle accident; before “Judas!,” The Band and The Dead; before he found Jesus, Mark Knopfler and Alicia Keys… Bob Dylan put out his first album of original material.
The 22-year-old had released his self-titled debut a year earlier, but that album featured only two originals among a slew of folk and blues covers. 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was its mirror image — two covers and eleven originals by a new voice that would revolutionize folk music.
A couple of days ago I was expressing my shock that Bringing it all Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Help! and Rubber Soul were all released in 1965.
Well, in 1966, add Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde and The Beatles’ Revolver to the mix (not to mention Simon & Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.
I grew up in the wrong decade, man!
Revolver feels like the album where The Beatles really became The Beatles, which is odd because it was their seventh record and they released only four proper studio albums after this one.
But this album saw the band pivot from a pop band to psychedelic pioneers — tour guides on a head trip that would last for a decade.
