Mining the layers of long players. We focus on great albums in their entirety and believe every album tells a story. We take a deep dive into the history of the artist and the album while discussing the merits of the music within the grooves. We are highly opinionated and outspoken and hope to provoke you into sharing your own opinions on albums. If you are serious about great music, this is your podcast. www.tappingvinyl.com
Send us Fan Mail Every now and then, we have to cut stuff from the show to due time constraints. These are some of the recent exchanges we've had: How do you say "Pogues"? Arguing the intellectual and entertaining merit of "Land of the Lost". "Who was Andy Warhol by chipmunks?" There will be more to come. Visit us at www.tappingvinyl.com.
Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we discuss Fleetwood Mac’s sixth album, 1972’s Bare Trees. This album was released during the period between co-founder Peter Green's departure from the band and Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nick's arrival and is easily the most overlooked and underappreciated period in Fleetwood Mac's long history. This period marks a tumultuous time for the band, full of dizzying personnel changes and exploration of new musical directions away from their blues-based beginning...
Send us Fan Mail Joe Ely, Adam Carroll, and Willis Alan Ramsey. What do these three have in common? They're all born and raised in Texas and they have each released fantastic albums that are uniquely Texan. Joe Ely's 1978 album "Honky Tonk Masquerade" is a mixture of old school country, with a touch of zydeco and norteno mixed in, and a collection of songs written by Ely and his Lubbock bandmates, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock. Adam Carroll's first album, South of Town, is a debut album ...
Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we take a look at the fifth album by arguably THE band of the 1970s: Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy. After Led Zeppelin’s monster success with their fourth LP (Zeppelin IV, ZOSO, etc.), the band felt uncertain about how to follow up such a successful album. That success also gave the band a sense of artistic freedom that found them in a more experimental mood, departing from their heavy blues sound and embracing acoustic instruments, synthesizers, and a favor...
Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we take a deep dive into the third album by the power-pop band, Fountains of Wayne: Welcome Interstate Managers. After two critically acclaimed, but in the eyes of the Atlantic Records commercially underperforming LPs, the label dropped them. The band shopped around for a label, but with little success, As a result, Welcome Interstate Managers. was self-financed. The record saw the songwriting duo of Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood crafting songs about th...
Send us Fan Mail On this week’s episode, we discuss the 10th album by Aretha Franklin, and her first for Atlantic Records, the groundbreaking I Never Loved a Man the Way That I Loved You . The Queen of Soul had made a series of decidedly un-soulful albums when her career began with Columbia Records. Discovered by the legendary John Hammond (Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Billie Holiday), he tried to mold her into the next Billie Holiday with big band and string arrangements, an...
Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we discuss the 1975 album by Jerry Jeff Walker, Ridin’ High. Prior to moving to Austin, Texas, Walker was essentially a folkie, but he distinguished himself by penning "Mr. Bojangles” a song covered almost as many times as "Yesterday" and by a very wide variety of artists, most famously by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. After he and the Lost Gonzo Band recorded the highly influential Cosmic American music masterpiece Viva Terlingua , an outlaw country legend was bo...
Send us Fan Mail On this week’s episode, we take on an “angry young man” and dive headfirst into what many consider Graham Parker’s finest artistic statement, 1979’s Squeezing Out Sparks. By 1979, Parker, backed by a fantastic group of former pub rock musicians known as the Rumour, had recorded three albums of horn-infused soulful rock and roll, when he decided he needed to take a different direction. Having changed to a more supportive label in the US, he enlisted the production talents of Jack...
Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we look at the 1983 debut of legendary Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan: Texas Flood. While Stevie Ray Vaughan seemed to come out of nowhere when he walked on stage with his band, Double Trouble, at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, and, indeed, he was the first to perform without a record label backing him. While the performance was met with boos from the audience, it did catch the attention of two figures in the audience: Jackson Browne and D...
Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we discuss Neil Young’s 1992 album, Harvest Moon. After a stint at Geffen records that resulted in a lawsuit for not sounding characteristic enough and churning out two albums for Reprise that basically planted the seeds for grunge, Neil Young decided it was time to give his ears a rest. Harvest Moon finds Young in familiar and popular territory. The album is very reminiscent of Young's 1972 album Harvest, includes many of the players and singers from that album...
Send us Fan Mail On this, our first Violation Podcast, we turn our attention to songs on albums that we don't think we could review. Sometimes the song might be a good song on an otherwise so-so album, or the song might be on an album too "out there" for us to consider, or the song itself is worthy of recognition even if the album itself isn't. Regardless, we hope you these tunes spark some interest in you to consider these bands and maybe their works. Visit us at www.tappingvinyl.com....
Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we take a look at the extremely popular album, The Unforgettable Fire, by U2. An album that was an unexpected change of artistic direction for the band, yet one that set them on course to becoming one of the biggest bands of the 1980s. U2 had already experienced tremendous success with their third album, War , and they had made a huge splash on MTV (the music medium of the 80s) with their live concert video U2 Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky . With each...
Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we discuss Closing Time, the debut album by enigmatic singer-songwriter Tom Waits. Released on David Geffen’s Asylum label in 1973, it immediately stood out from most of the folk and Americana tinged offerings from the other Artists on the label like Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, and the Eagles. Closing Time is considered by many Tom Waits fans who prefer his more experimental and avant-garde output as an outlier within his discography. It is certainly his mos...
Send us Fan Mail The Pogues, fronted by an English-born, Irish rogue by the name of Shane MacGowan, made traditional Irish music and instrumentation hip by playing it with a distinctively punk attitude and imbuing the lyrics with a poets sensibility. On this episode, we look at the band’s third and most well-known album, If I Should Fall From Grace With God. The record was made with a new line-up, slightly expanding the group’s size and sound. Produced by Steve Lillywhite, this album contains po...
Send us Fan Mail When the Grateful Dead decided to simplify their studio process, the result was a return to the band's roots with simple, country, and folk-inspired tunes. Their next LP, Workingman’s Dead set the stage for the release of arguably the band’s studio masterpiece just a scant five months later, American Beauty. On this episode, we discuss American Beauty and what makes it so endearing and enduring, and why we believe it holds a special place in Americana music specifically, and 20t...
Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we dive kilt deep into The Crossing, the 1983 debut album by Big Country. Formed in Dunfermline, Scotland, the band’s journey to this critically acclaimed album wasn’t a straight line and involved a drum machine, a member of the Jam, and a failed attempt by producer extraordinaire Chris Thomas, before Steve Lillywhite took the reigns to produce an LP that became an unabashed commercial success. It's an album full of unusual guitar techniques and gadgetry, includ...
Send us Fan Mail On this episode , we discuss Waylon Jennings' 1973 landmark LP: Honky Tonk Heroes. While it may be up to debate as to which album marked the beginning of "Outlaw Country," there is little doubt as to the impact Waylon Jennings and Honky Tonk Heroes had on the burgeoning movement and country music in general. Jennings' groundbreaking LP stripped away the strings and lush vocals dominant in Nashville at the time, and instead presented hard-edged honky tonk music, with attitude to ...
Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we discuss the 1995 LP by the Jayhawks: Tomorrow the Green Grass. It was the fourth (and final LP) of the initial Mark Olson/Gary Louris collaboration before Olson decided to leave the band (he would reunite with the band to record the fantastic Mockingbird Time) . Tomorrow the Green Grass is exactly what you'd expect from a Jayhawks record; it is replete with their trademark harmonies, jangly guitars, unconventional song structures, and dreamy yet heartfelt lyr...
Send us Fan Mail Meat Loaf, a 350-pound Texan possessing an operatic voice both powerful and agile, was the Christian and Jim Steinman, a Jewish, leather-clad composer from New York with a sense of humor few in rock or theater ever have, was Cyrano. Find out how the two found each other and created one of the best selling albums of all time (and meeting much resistance along the way) in this episode. The producer, Todd Rundgren, recognized almost immediately that this was exceptional material an...
Send us Fan Mail John Cale was the most musically astute member of the Velvet Underground and on this album it shows. Soon after being fired from VU, Cale found work as a producer (The Stooges, Nico) and a collaborator (most notably with avant garde musician, Terry Riley). But he also began crafting songs influenced by the Beach Boys, the Band, and Phil Spector. He was also enthralled by Little Feat's Dixie Chicken enough to hire three members of the band, including Lowell George, to back him on...
Send us Fan Mail Pink Floyd's follow up to their 1973 classic, Dark Side of the Moon, was in part an homage to the group's founding member, main songwriter, singer, and guitarist, Syd Barrett, and in part a chronicle of the band's dissolution with the fame and success they had achieved. It's a favorite among the band members, but it was not easy album to compose or record. Find out more about Pink Floyd's 1975 release, Wish You Were Here. Visit us at www.tappingvinyl.com....
Send us Fan Mail Here's some outtakes from the Townes Van Zandt episode that you might find entertaining and informative. Visit us at www.tappingvinyl.com.
Send us Fan Mail Legendary singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt waited a long time before releasing this album in 1987. His song, Pancho and Lefty, had just become a hit for Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, so he had money in the bank, and Van Zandt was struggling with demons that ultimately would help him succumb to complications from hip surgery on New Year's Day, 1997. On this album, Townes sings about aging and the disappointments that falling in love can bring. His voice is ragged, but the pr...
Send us Fan Mail XTC was under the gun with this album. They were pressured by their record company to produce an album that would sell 70,000 units or they would be dropped. The cure? Sound less British. So, they brought in studio wiz, multi-instrumentalist, veteran producer Todd Rundgren, whom the band was only somewhat familiar with. The result? An album steeped in dreamy lyrics and atmosphere that evoked the English country side and working life. It is also is a continuous body of work that ...
Send us Fan Mail Badfinger is heralded as the seminal power pop band. And while they had all the ingredients needed to be a successful rock band (including catching the attention of the Beatles and being the first band signed to their Apple label), monetary and sustained commercial success eluded them largely due to the nefarious business practices of their manager. This album, the last of the classic line up, finds the band honing their skills and branching out into new directions, but still re...
Send us Fan Mail Rod Stewart is perhaps the most frustrating figure in popular music. He is a man gifted with arguably the best voice in rock and roll and he can write some amazing songs, straight up rockers and heart-felt ballads. But Stewart eventually moved to cash in on that talent, epitomized in the 1978 album, Blondes Have More Fun. On this podcast, we look back at Stewart's most popular album before 1978, Every Picture Tells a Story, which finds Stewart, then a member of the ultimate pub ...
Send us Fan Mail The Pretenders first album consistently received high marks from the critics and was a top 10 album in the U.S. when it was released, although it sounded like nothing else like anything else in the Top 40 at the time. It's a rock album with gorgeous melodies that, at times, disguise the disturbing subject matter of the lyrics. Though most of the songs were written by singer and rhythm guitarist Chrissie Hynde, this is a band album where every member plays an integral part in the...
Send us Fan Mail On this episode, we talk about a band named after the inventor of the seed drill, Jethro Tull, and perhaps the band's best-known album Aqualung, which happens to be the name of the underwater breathing apparatus invented by Jacques Cousteau. Why A qualung ? Who knows. But there's plenty of other stuff discussed in this episode, such as the band's charismatic flute-wielding leader, the all-around excellent musicianship, and the always thought-provoking (and often difficult ) them...
Send us Fan Mail Dave Mason may not be a household name, but you are familiar with his work, especially his guitar playing, which has been on some of the most acclaimed songs of the late 60s and early 70s (which is why our cohost Tony calls him "The Forest Gump of Rock"). After co-founding and "leaving" Traffic, Mason recorded his first solo album, Alone Together. Mason is joined in the studio with some of rock's best musicians, including his Traffic teammate, Jim Capaldi. Find out why this part...
Send us Fan Mail Hailed by critics as Los Lobo's best album, Kiko found the band in an experimental frame of mind. The band members themselves can't recall where some of the tunes and sounds came from. On this album, the band worked with famed keyboardist and producer, Mitchell Vroom (Crowded House, Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney), whose bank of keyboards color this album and make the fine songs sound textured and more interesting. Also, Tony introduces us the first all-covers album from the ban...
