The Random iTunes Fairy is inadvertently jumping the gun here, unaware that I’m planning a theme week on Sinead O’Connor. This track wasn’t in the lineup, though, so no harm, no foul.
‘Just Call Me Joe’ is the final track of O’Connor’s impressive 1987 debut album, The Lion and the Cobra. For those (like me) whose first exposure to the bald songstress was through the quiet elegance of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U,’ this album was eye-opening.
Talking Heads’ 1983 album Speaking in Tongues was the band’s commercial breakthrough, to whatever extent a band this idiosyncratic can break through. The single ‘Burning Down the House’ became the group’s only top ten hit.
Speaking in Tongues followed the critically lauded but less accessible Remain in Light, and these two records form the band’s creative high point.
James Taylor’s second solo album, Sweet Baby James, was the singer-songwriter’s most successful and beloved record and the start of a burst of activity that lasted through the 70s.
Taylor would release seven more albums in that decade, matching hit output over the following 36 years. Must have been all the heroin.
1970 saw the release of the final Beatles album, Let It Be, but also solo releases by each of the Fab Four.
Paul McCartney’s solo debut, McCartney, came out in April and went double platinum despite lukewarm critical response. John Lennon’s solo debut, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, dropped in December to considerably more acclaim. And overachiever Ringo Starr put out two albums that year, Sentimental Journey and Beaucoups of Blues.
Neil Young had a pretty good 1970. In addition to yesterday’s Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album, Deja Vu, he released the solo record After the Gold Rush, considered one of his best.
The album has the same country folk style as his work with CSN, a contrast to his previous solo effort, the harder-edged Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.
