Mini Reviews – My Music Playlist This Week – U2, WASP, Jeff Beck

Mini CD Reviews of U2 – No Line on the Horizon, W.A.S.P. – Headless Children, and Beck, Bogart and Appice Live

Virtually every day, I listen to music. I still listen to and believe in albums which is contradictory to the way most people listen to music these days. I think most people get their three minute songs and stack them together to make a playlist. I stack albums and make my playlist. I have an iPod and a Zune. I only listen to those in emergency situations or in my truck sometimes. My entire collection is digital, but 99% lossless. I drive about five hours a week all the time listening to music. When I’m working on my laptop, I have earphones on jacked into a collection on my hard drive. When I’m at my desk at work or at home, I have music playing.

Anyway, I think a regular feature of what is in my playlist is in order. This might help you in your buy choices or turn you on to something that you never heard of or jar a memory loose. I listen to lots of different things, but as you can guess it is usually in the rock world. It would be awesome if you would share some of the things you are listening to. (Rock n Roll View is a dofollow site, so your backlinks will count.)

Jeff Beck – Beck, Bogart, Appice Live
With the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame induction behind us, I broke out this album to celebrate Jeff Beck and his induction. This is not really a Jeff Beck album and it wasn’t released in the United States, but it is one of my favorite Beck albums for a couple of reasons:  1.) I love power trios (Cream, Pat Travers Band, Zebra, etc.) and 2.) this album is like a heavy metal jazz album if you can imagine that. The album starts out with a wild interpretation of “Superstition” which Stevie Wonder originally wrote for Jeff, but ended up recording himself. We also have a nice rocked up version of “Morning Dew” that goes on for 14 minutes. For you blues guys, “Black Cat Moan” moans for about 10 minutes. More than anything what I love about this album most is the interplay between three rock legends at their peak.

W.A.S.P – Headless Children
WASP floats in and out of my playlist fairly regular. Blackie Lawless (vocal, guitar, bass) the prime mover, is extremely under rated. He might be the Edger Allen Poe of heavy metal, while scary still brilliant. I’ve written about WASP and Blackie before (search above), so I won’t go into too much detail except to say that Headless Children in one of my favorite albums. Notably Frankie Banali from Quite Riot handles drums and Ken Hensley from Uriah Heep handles keyboards. Standout songs for me are “Mean Man” which begs to be turned up to 11. The Who get covered on “The Real Me” with great success. There are a couple of epics too just to show you that Blackie can write in such a way. I have the reissue which includes to my delight a cover of Jethro Tull’s “Locomotive Breath.” Headless Children will continue to find its way into my playlist and it should make its way into yours as well.

U2 – No Line On the Horizon
I’ve always thought that The Edge is a remarkable guitar player and Bono has an innate ability to stir your soul, and the rhythm section of U2 is second to none, but for a while now they have been unable to stir me… that is until No Line on the Horizon. This may be their best album since Rattle and Hum. There is the catchy lead off single of “Get Your Boots On” (see it in high definition at HD Music Videos Online), but don’t let that dissuade you if you are anti-pop. The album is full of songs that work as an album and draws you in. I think that it is one of those albums where the songs themselves disappear and you have a single consciousness. If you have to have notable tracks, I would say that “Cedars of Lebanon” and “White as Snow” murmur to me in a whispered way. I will keep this one in the CD player of my truck for a couple more weeks. I’m sure more of it will reveal itself.

Don’t forget to comment below and let us know what you are listening to.