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Old 07-04-2011, 09:42 AM   #61 (permalink)
Trollheart
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Disclaimer: please note that all the tracks on this file are mixed together, segued so as to present a single, seamless piece of music. If you download it and find you don't like one or more tracks, you cannot simply skip to the next, as there IS no next --- it's all one track. So the only way to bypass tracks you don't like in the mix is to fast-forward through them. I mention this so that anyone dowloading these files knows what to expect. Comments are as always welcomed.

For those who really need to know, the mixing is done via Goldwave v 5.58, downloadable at GoldWave - Audio Editor, Recorder, Converter, Restoration, & Analysis Software. I copy each separate track and use the “mix” function to add it to the compilation. Some trial and error (mostly error!) is involved, but what I end up with is usually the best I can expect to get in terms both of equalising volume and cross-fading.

TRACK 1:- The loner (Gary Moore) from Wild Frontier.

I've always liked to start these mixes off with a track that fades in, and so the first ever of these particular mixes features the late, great Gary Moore, with a stirring instrumental from his 1987 album, “Wild frontier”. It's called “The loner”, and is a real example of how proficient and experienced Moore was on the guitar, but also how he could make it cry, sing, laugh, do anything he wanted. It's really emotive work here, perhaps all the more poignant now that the great man is no longer with us. One of the only instrumentals I have ever heard from the man, I must say, and even at that, it's not technically a true instrumental, as during the song he lets out what sounds like a cry of despair, and at the end he sings “So lonely”, but these are the only vocal accompaniments on something which is, to all intents and purposes, an instrumental track.

TRACK 2:- Wanted dead or alive (Bon Jovi) from Slippery when wet

Staying with 1987 then, as “The loner” fades out on some exquisite guitar, the dusty prairie wind blows in as Bon Jovi's huge hit from “Slippery when wet”, their most commercially successful album ever, and the one that broke them into the mainstream, kicks in. Written by Jon Bon Jovi himself and Ritchie Sambora, it's a tale of the Old West, of desperadoes and cowboys, likening these frontier bad boys to the rock bands of today. I guess everyone knows it, so there's probably no need to go too much into the details, but with lines like “Sometimes you tell the day/ By the bottle that you drink/ Sometimes when you're alone/ All you do is think” and “I walk these streets/ A loaded six-string on my back/ I play for keeps/ Cos I might not make it back”, you should be in no doubt as to what you're in for.

TRACK 3:- Toy soldiers (Martika) from Martika

Step two years on and we're into 1989, and we go all pop with Martika's “Toy soldiers”. Opinion is divided as to whether this was a song about drug addiction or just a bad love affair, the former being apparently claimed retrospectively by Martika when the song was a hit, but there's no doubting the drug-related lines in the lyric, such as “It's getting harder to wake up in the morning/ My head is spinning constantly/ How can this be? /How could I be so blind to this addiction?/ If I don't stop/ The next one's gonna be me” and “Only emptiness remains/ It replaces all of the pain.”

Either way, although this is a pop song and charted in the UK and US (reaching number one in the USA), it's a hard-edged pop song, and perhaps surprisingly successful, given the possible drug connection in the lyric. However, it was clear that this was going to be Martika's “big thing”, her one-hit-wonder, and true to form, her only other hit was a rather embarrassing reworking of Carole King's “I feel the earth move”, after which she disappeared from commercial sight. Not ever proven, but I would think fairly obvious that Martika was trying to hitch her star to, and cash in on the fame and attraction of another female mega-star who also used only one name and which also began with M and ended in A....

TRACK 4:- Father figure (George Michael) from Faith

I've never been a huge George Michael fan, but to be fair he did release some pretty good songs, and like many others, I “listened without prejudice” in 1990, and it was a hell of a good album. This, however, is from his first solo effort, the famous “Faith”, and one of the better tracks on that album in my opinion. Perhaps because he had already courted controversy by releasing “I want your sex”, the somewhat questionable lyrical content seemed to go unnoticed. “Father figure” is, essentially, a “Lolita”-like song, in much the same vein as the Police's “Don't stand so close to me”, focussing on the relationship between an older man and a much younger girl, in lyrics like “I will be your preacher teacher/ (Be your daddy)” and “That's all I wanted/ But sometimes love can be/ Mistaken for a crime”. The song is very laid-back, with a gentle, at times almost whispered vocal, and an extremely catchy eastern/arabic keyboard hook. It's this that opens the song, and fades it into the mix from the end of the chanting of the chorus on “Toy soldiers”, and which again brings it to a close.

TRACK 5:- Stronger (Faith Hill) from Cry

Although she claims to be a country singer, my own take on Faith Hill is that she is far more mainstream and pop than country. Strip away the steel guitar in her songs and ignore some of the more country-centric lyrics, and you have basic commercial pop songs. All great --- there's nothing wrong with that. I just feel that someone like, say, Emmylou Harris or Nanci Griffith deserves more to be described as country than Faith does. For me, she's more Shania than Crystal. But “Cry” is an excellent album, no matter the criteria you use to judge it, and this is one of the (sorry) strongest tracks. Beginning with a powerful acapella line, Faith tells us “This is the window to my heart/ I just want us to be free” and the guitar and piano pick up behind her as the song begins, with the full band coming in shortly after. It's the story of one of those “we-need-to-talk” moments, when one or both of the partners need space. It's a beautiful song, one of several ballads on the album, as she puts her case: “Maybe this is what we need/ A little bruisin', a little bleeding/ Some space that we can breathe in/ Silence in between.”

TRACK 6:- Baby can I hold you (Tracy Chapman) from Tracy Chapman

Proof, if any were needed, that a love song can be short and yet still effective. Clocking in at only just over three minutes , “Baby can I hold you” is a softly played and sung ballad, with a tough message, as the singer exorts her partner to admit their feelings: “Sorry is all that you can't say/ Years gone by and still / Words don't come easily/ Like sorry.” When Tracy Chapman burst onto the scene with the single “Fast car” from her debut album, it looked like she was going to take the world by storm. Sadly, that did not happen, and though she has gone on to release several albums since this, her greatest claim to commercial fame will forever doubtless be that Boyzone covered this song. Sad, but there it is.

TRACK 7:- Crime of the century (Supertramp) from Crime of the century

All the way back to 1974 then, for the title track from the third Supertamp album, and in many ways one of their darkest. The song itself is pretty amazing, having lyrics for only two short verses with the remainder of the five-and-a-half-minute track taken up by piano and keyboard solos to the end, the piano in fact simply repeating the same sequence of chords throughout the song, with sax taking up a parting blast as the end fades out.

TRACK 8:- This island Earth (Glass Tiger) from Diamond Sun

Although best known for their hit “Don't forget me (when I'm gone)”, from their previous album “The thin red line”, this is the closer from their second release, 1988's “Diamond sun”, and is Glass Tiger's take on the “we-must-save-the-world-before-it's-too-late” theme. It's a long song (over six minutes) and closes the album really well, with fine vocal performance by Alan Frew, with a nice little guitar solo near the end by Al Connelly, and it leads rather well into the penultimate track on the mix.

TRACK 9:- Next profundis (Adagio) from Underworld

Featuring some of the most proficient piano playing I have heard on any rock record, “Next profundis” is the opener to French progressive metal band Adagio's second album, “Underworld”, and well worth checking out if you haven't already heard them. Vocalist David Readman sounds just like the late Ronnie James Dio --- and the fact that the great man's name is contained within the band name is, we have to assume, purely coincidental! --- reaching the highs and the lows with equal ease, while Kevin Codfert puts just about every prog rock keyboard player to shame with his skill. It's a long track, and no, I have no idea what the title means, but it's definitely worth listening to. A powerful slice of symphonic prog metal, not to be missed, and it ends on a piano run that happily slips seamlessly into the final track.

TRACK 10:- Hope for us (Shadow Gallery) from Tyranny

As I say, the piano intro to this track melds flawlessly (I believe anyway!) from the previous Adagio song to form almost a seamless crossover, and take us to the last track on my first mix. I've written about this track already in my review of “Tyranny”, so check there for more details. Suffice to say it's a gentle and fitting way to end this mix, as I hope you'll agree.

This mix can be downloaded here TenfromTrollheart1A.mp3

Best played through from start to finish, it runs for just over 52 minutes. If anyone is wondering, no, it's pure coincidence that the bulk of the material on this comes from the late eighties: I just thought all these tracks complemented each other, and I hope you will agree. If not, let me know!
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