ILM's Now For Something Completely Different... 70s Album Poll Results! Top 100 Countdown! (Part 2)

best poll i've ever read anywhere. Such an absurd amount of stuff I cannot wait to hear.

OH OF COURSE I'm out when half my ballot places. Hurrah for Selda, Slits, Pere Ubu, Faust. Double super hurrah for Cottonwoodhill. EXTRA MILLION TIMES HURRAH for Acnalbasac Noom. Seriously, when it didn't place in the 200s I really thought it wouldn't place in the top 500 at all. It was a pretty emotional struggle for me to not make it my #1, so I'm very very glad it's here.

Sorry I havent been following. Cut and Tanz were both top 5 for me. Also stoked to see Cottonwoodhill in the top 100

Who was the #1 for Tanz? Out yrself for kudos!

wow @ this Malesch album

Curtis at 78 is really disappointing, it's one of the most perfect albums ever made.

Very happy to see that the first Roxy Music album will be their highest, I have my fingers crossed it'll make the top ten.

I thought The Modern Dance would be a lot higher going on how well it did in the last 70's albums list.

Would have liked to see Radio City a bit higher, yet another perfect album.

There seems to be lots of albums showing up now that I have just never heard of.

Yeah I had Modern Dance pegged for top 20

best poll i've ever read anywhere. Such an absurd amount of stuff I cannot wait to hear.

― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke),

Thanks!

It really makes it all worthwhile to see comments like that. Glad lots of ilxors are checking out lots of new-to-them albums and getting into them. The whole point of doing the poll for me!

I hope everyone is enjoying the reviews that fastnbulbous is doing a LOT of work in tracking down just for everyone?

It's been a treat.

Also I'm pleased that emil.y's campaigning for Slapp Happy paid off for her!

It's great that we're still getting surprise entries this high up in the list - I'd never heard of those Heldon records before, will have to check them out (I've got a twofer CD of their first and third albums which I do like). Curtis, Zuma, The Modern Dance and Inner Mounting Flame all got points from me.

I gave that Brainticket album a listen after enjoying the one that placed earlier, erm... yeah, it was a bit much.

Surprised Tanz and Wolf City placed so high - they're both good albums but I'd never rank them over Yeti.

Listened to that Selda album this morning. Really nice, not partic rocking IMO. Will definitely go back to it though. When looking at that I also picked up Jean-Claude Vannier's "L' Enfant Assassin des Mouches", also on Finders Keepers, which is some crazy freakiness and might have fitted well with this poll.

I think that was nominated, I agree that it'd fit right in here (I wouldn't be at all surprised if it made the top 60).

2 #1 votes for slapp happy! I haven't spent much time with them, probably should as I love in praise of learning, babble & all the art bears stuff.

I thought for your pleasure & cut would be top 20 for sure. Can't wait to see what bonkers stuff makes it to the upper reaches.

The amazing thing is emil.y wasn't even one of the #1 voters.

But it shows the power of campaigning.

Any hopes or predictions for the top 60?

Still hoping to see A Wizard, A True Star make it.

Along with Roxy Music I'd like to see Here Come The Warm Jets, Are We Not Men and The Modern Lovers very in the top ten/twenty.

I've been hoping that Motor Booty Affair would make it but just realised it wasn't nominated so I guess I'm now looking to see Mothership Connection high up. I would really love to see Standing on The Verge of Getting on beat Maggot Brain as I think it's a much better album, don't see that happening though. I'm sure Maggot Brain stands a good chance of being number one.

It seems like Marquee Moon is another obvious contender for number one but this list has been so unpredicatable so far I just can't be sure.

Entertainment! should do well I think. Everyone likes that record, right?

Simply Saucer ftw

will lol if maggot brain tops this one as well

Did I miss Yeti?

I am hoping Fun House is #1, but it v well cd be Maggot Brain or Tago Mago. Theres actually a lot of possibilities now that O think about it...

er, "now that I think about it..."

I read that like one of those screaming goats interrupted ..

Idk what you're talking about

Theres a real possibility that Riot will beat out Maggot Brain

I gave that Brainticket album a listen after enjoying the one that placed earlier, erm... yeah, it was a bit much.

Hahaha, it does have warning labels on the sleeve.

"After listening to this record, your friends won't know you anymore" and "Listen only once a day to this record, your brain might be destroyed".

Listened to that Selda album this morning. Really nice, not partic rocking IMO. Will definitely go back to it though.

OTM.

Hahaha, it does have warning labels on the sleeve.

"After listening to this record, your friends won't know you anymore" and "Listen only once a day to this record, your brain might be destroyed".

Well that's what I get for using Spotify, no warnings there, you'd think they could have a pop-up or something.

Soft Machine's Third hasn't appeared yet, would like to see that place high.

60. BLACK SABBATH Paranoid (2726 Points, 17 Votes, 1 #1)
RYM: #1 for 1970, #18 overall | Acclaimed: #135 | RS: #130
http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0002/780/MI0002780001.jpg?partner=allrovi.com
http://open.spotify.com/album/714ndVxSx8lIWhQxdbcXIs
spotify:album:714ndVxSx8lIWhQxdbcXIs

They do take heavy to undreamt-of extremes, and I suppose I could enjoy them as camp, like a horror movie--the title cut is definitely screamworthy. After all, their audience can't take that Lucifer bit seriously, right? Well, depends on what you mean by serious. Personally, I've always suspected that horror movies catharsized stuff I was too rational to care about in the first place. C- -- R. Christgau

A young girl's voice. She is dressed in a nun's habit. The boy turns and faces her. She proffers a chalice of cervical exudate and he drinks from it. She gets down on her knees and elbows, como peros, and tosses the nun's hem above her posterior. On each naked buttock is the scrawled sign of Ashirikas; "Fuck me, Rolf." The boy whips out a 10" personal vibrator, adorned in waterproof acrylics with the image of the Nazarene. He intones the words "nuk Khensu tenten nebu" and approaches her intendant fundament...impletion...across the room the fresh corpse of an illegitimate hippie baby is dis-impaled from the ceremonial sword of Baph-omet. The myrrh is extinguished with the collected saliva of priests listening to tales of carnal abuse in warm, dark confessionals. The Shadaic numinae are chalked over with the mirrored sign of Ariael, the eleven rubies returned to the vessel of Dione.

A dark, handsome youth with the physique of a Dionysos — eyes, though, glazed and cold — grasps the two-foot stem of an imported El-Douhab hookah by its hilt and shoves its tip, sans mouthpiece, into the dry, collapsed rectum of the dead hippie baby, pushes until thin rivulets of blood ooze from the nostrils and lips of the infant. The hookah's stem-tip surfaces and the suck-piece is restored. Those in the room gather about. One youth wears a mosaic-inlaid Aztec skull mask, ornamented with the symbols of Gnostic adoration. He fills the hookah bowl with black opium tars and a dash of Asthmador powders...in the corner of the room, clutching a smuggled police photo of Sharon Tate with her hacked-off tit crammed up her snatch, a lone boy masturbates slowly, moaning "tempora mutantur et nos muta-mur in illis."

No "flower children" they, the sinister emanation of a generation who only yesterday, it seems, were set on changing a world in the shadow of nuclear holocaust and overpopulation into a utopia of peace and love. They drop the knee of fealty before the Antichrist. They shoot "M" and they engage in group sex. No act is too depraved, no thought too bizarre as they plunge deeper and deeper into the realm of perversion, into the ultimate "trip" of their own self-fashioned Hell. Orgies, incest, drugs, homosexuality, necrophilia, public nose-picking, Satanism, even living sacrifice.

And this is their music. Although you may not enjoy its "message," although you may not enjoy a lead singer (Kip Treavor), who sounds like Keith Relf whining about the tampons stuck up his nostrils, you owe it to yourself as a person concerned with contemporary society or merely with the artistic underground of the youth movement in general to be aware of the "heavy" sounds of bubble-gum Satanism and if you see them live sometimes they undress a hippie girl. -- Nick Tosches, RS

Most heavy metal thrives on uptempos; Black Sabbath prefers sludge and slow-motion fuzz. Ozzy Osborne's shrill vocals contribute to a mix of rudimentary riffs and obsessive lyrics, creating an angst-ridden punk poetry
of the semi-conscious. Despite an impressive list of potential rivals, Black Sabbath may play the ultimate downer metal. -- Jim Miller, "The Heavy Metal Hall of Fame", RS

Black Sabbath had already raised eyebrows in their native England with their self-titled debut: a seismic re-routing of the blues that, along with the first two Led Zeppelin classics, helped give birth to a new form of rock 'n' roll: heavy metal.

In terms of songwriting, the Birmingham quartet's second LP was a quantum leap. Leviathan protest number "War Pigs" is one of the all-time great intros, capturing the embittered mood of Western youth as the U.S. government fought its bloody campaign in Vietnam. All the Sabbath trademarks are here: Ozzy Osbourne's eerie, ominous wail; supple, tempo-shifting dynamics from drummer Bill Ward and bassist/lyricist Geezer Butler; and, most recognizably, the hulking presence of guitar hero and lord of the riff, Tony Iommi.

The iconic title track comes next, a proto-punk blast of alienation that remains Black Sabbath's signature anthem -- Ozzy and Iommi even performed it at Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee celebrations in London in 2002. Ghostly ballad "Planet Caravan" displays an oft-overlooked tender side, while lumbering sci-fi drama "Iron Man" seems to anticipate the entire grunge movement. The final four tracks are less well known, but just as imposing. Heroin nightmare "Hand Of Doom" is especially apt, helping consolidate Sabbath's position as the darkest force in Seventies music.

Paranoid broke them in America, reaching No. 12 on the U.S. chart. Its songs have been covered by acts as diverse as Pantera and The Cardigans; its influence on the heavier end of the rock spectrum, from Nirvana to Queens Of The Stone Age, is incalculable. -- Manish Agarwal, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

review
[-] by Steve Huey

Paranoid was not only Black Sabbath's most popular record (it was a number one smash in the U.K., and "Paranoid" and "Iron Man" both scraped the U.S. charts despite virtually nonexistent radio play), it also stands as one of the greatest and most influential heavy metal albums of all time. Paranoid refined Black Sabbath's signature sound -- crushingly loud, minor-key dirges loosely based on heavy blues-rock -- and applied it to a newly consistent set of songs with utterly memorable riffs, most of which now rank as all-time metal classics. Where the extended, multi-sectioned songs on the debut sometimes felt like aimless jams, their counterparts on Paranoid have been given focus and direction, lending an epic drama to now-standards like "War Pigs" and "Iron Man" (which sports one of the most immediately identifiable riffs in metal history). The subject matter is unrelentingly, obsessively dark, covering both supernatural/sci-fi horrors and the real-life traumas of death, war, nuclear annihilation, mental illness, drug hallucinations, and narcotic abuse. Yet Sabbath makes it totally convincing, thanks to the crawling, muddled bleakness and bad-trip depression evoked so frighteningly well by their music. Even the qualities that made critics deplore the album (and the group) for years increase the overall effect -- the technical simplicity of Ozzy Osbourne's vocals and Tony Iommi's lead guitar vocabulary; the spots when the lyrics sink into melodrama or awkwardness; the lack of subtlety and the infrequent dynamic contrast. Everything adds up to more than the sum of its parts, as though the anxieties behind the music simply demanded that the band achieve catharsis by steamrolling everything in its path, including its own limitations. Monolithic and primally powerful, Paranoid defined the sound and style of heavy metal more than any other record in rock history.

I gave that Brainticket album a listen after enjoying the one that placed earlier, erm... yeah, it was a bit much.

Hahaha, it does have warning labels on the sleeve.

"After listening to this record, your friends won't know you anymore" and "Listen only once a day to this record, your brain might be destroyed".

I could do w/out the bits of musique concrete, but that motorik guitar/keyboard riff-machine at Brainticket's core drives the track w/in spitting distance of proto-techno and pushes it far ahead of the endless space-noodle prog-dribbling that eshews bearing down on the present like a freight train for the illusionary pleasures of vanishing into a quasi-literary fantasy miasma of exponential technocratic tinkering that like one of Zeno's paradoxes only drags the music further from its ostensibly epic affect and closer to the heart of misplaced 70s ambition. (so I'll take an hour of that riff noize, keep yr Van der Graaf Generator).

Paranoid is probably my least favourite of the first six Sabbath albums but that's mainly down to overplaying of 'Iron Man' and the title track, it's still a great album.

I could do w/out the bits of musique concrete

I know I do this myself, but I really hate comments where people are "oh, this would be okay if it weren't for x", where x is something that is totally integral to the whole record.

hellhouse your adjectives are killing me!

59. CHROME Alien Soundtracks (2768 Points, 22 Votes, 1 #1)
RYM: #76 for 1977 , #3814 overall
http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0002/410/MI0002410177.jpg?partner=allrovi.com
http://open.spotify.com/album/47ZFrrIQykS6sqwelQsvHi
spotify:album:47ZFrrIQykS6sqwelQsvHi

However, as the late-76 punk explosion changed the sonic temples of the rock’n’roll landscape out of all recognition between the release of Chrome’s debut and their follow-up, the trashing of the old ways brought many musicians not only in line with Chrome, but also actually into a position to surpass them. Chrome, however, rose to the occasion, as vocalist Mike Low disappeared over the horizon forever, leaving guitarist John Lambdin at the mercy of Damon Edge, now free to work on his lupine howl unobstructed. And with the release of Chrome’s second sacrificial offering ALIEN SOUNDTRACKS, the band absolutely nailed their muse to the floor. For herein was contained all of the yawp and thunder, all the bark and bitter rage of removal, all the homunculus ennui and editing room floor psychedelia that best represented Damon Edge’s unvented brainium. And, whilst the forms, cut-ups, splices, segue ways and collages of the record are never more extreme and lustfully executed than within the grooves of this LP, ALIEN SOUNDTRACKS still successfully walked that tightrope between horribly more-ish direct hits and the sheerly perverse barfothons which so obviously delighted Edge himself. But the change in sound and honing down of direction appears to have been due specifically to the appearance of new member (the legendary guitarist and mythically-named) Helios Creed, whose arrival tipped the scales so far in Damon Edge’s direction that every song on ALIEN SOUNDTRACKS would be a writing collaboration between the drummer and the newcomer, leaving previous songwriter John Lambdin orphaned in his own band.

ALIEN SOUNDTRACKS commences with the three-part mini-epic “Chromosome Damage”, which kicks off with about 40 seconds of frenetic drumming and lo-fi fuzz guitar over which Edge announces “I wanna fly away” before the whole freight train groove collides with the buffers of an industrial terminal. FX reminiscent of Pere Ubu-meets-Grand Funk’s “Winter & My Soul” (all TV and shortwave radio) breaks in until, fading out of the ether, comes a foul gloopy dual guitar solo announcing the death of the previous LP in final style. Incoming is the careering distorto-monomaniacal riffery of “The Monitors” with a killer punk-a-long chorus. Sucked out of the ether comes the almost Residents-like harmonised vocals of “All Data Lost”, which anticipates Monoshock’s “Leesa” by about a decade and a half, as analogue synthesizer drones and distant Joy Division theme guitars herald the fade. “SS Cygni” is nothing more than a highly catchy but typical Chrome lo-fi funk groove, with intertwining fuzz guitars that hit a plateau and then just motor to a fade. Side one concludes with one of my all time favourite Chrome pieces, the six minute long 6/8 flanged stellar waltz of “Nova Feedback”, in which John Lambdin and Helios Creed create layer upon layer of fuzzy crunching melody over an Edge skank rhythm reminiscent of Moebius & Plank’s RASTAKRAUTPASTA. The six minutes of “Pygmies in Zee Park” opens side two like some weird hybrid of Yello, Tuxedo Moon and DUCK STAB-period Residents, as wild dislocated voices howl and hoedown over frenetic distracted sambas, before the whole schmeer breaks down into a Hawkwind/Neu motorik groove over which Damon Edge croons, shamelessly aping Roy Orbison. Soon, this gives way to an infuriating electronic Prince Buster skank, albeit weighted down under heaped mattresses of distorted and ring modulated electronic brass stabs. Track two is the aforementioned “Slip It To The Android”, a James Brown-catchy on-the-one soul piece complete with George Duke-Herbie Hancock funky ARP 2600 synth soloing, John Lamdbin’s slunky electric violin and a robot MC crowing ‘Sleep eet to thee ann-droid’ over and over and fucking over again, a braying cartoon Mexican mule sneerily cheerily chewing your lobes like there’s zero airspace between performer and audience. “Pharoah Chromium” is Chrome’s take on Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs’ in which a bogus “Casbah Rock” meets “Rock The Casbah” meets the Modern Lovers’ “Egyptian Reggae”, as filtered through Damon Edge’s melted plastic brain. Kinda makes me think Adolph Sax woulda had seconds thoughts had he known such noise addicts were gonna get their mits on his beloved invention. On second thunks, you remember that Mothers of Invention track off FREAK OUT entitled ‘The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny”? Well I’m sure that’s the instrument Edge & Co employed in order to achieve this braying ass of a sound. The three minutes of “ST 37” follows, a pachuco spider-on-roller-skates barn dance with spiky picked electric guitar, clattering snare drums and lowest common denominator lyrics about getting in a Winnebago and going to San Diego. That this song gave its name to one of the ‘90s’ best American space rock bands is certainly evidence that not everyone has forgotten Chrome, though – like Bowie’s “TVC15”, I’ve no idea what the title means. ALIEN SOUNDTRACKS concludes with the “Iron Man” instrumental riffery of “Magnetic Dwarf people”, as the sparks fly upward and the skank of nations drags us with Biblical intensity west across the night sky forever chasing the sunset. Beautiful… fucking beautiful. If anyone asks you about Chrome, tell ‘em ALIEN SOUNDTRACKS nailed it, Dunne’n’Dusted, end of story. – J. Cope

review
[-] by Ned Raggett

With Creed recruited to replace original member Mike Low (though allegedly Edge initially turned Creed down after the latter appeared wearing a pirate outfit or something similar), Chrome started kicking into high gear at last. While Spain and Lambdin weren't out of the picture yet, cowriting half the songs with Edge, Creed's mind-melting guitar swiftly took prominence, turning a wiggy band into a total headtrip. Rather than just aiming at acid-rock styling, Creed stuffed his fretbending into an evil, compressed aggro-sound, at once psychedelic and totally in-your-face. Edge equals the activity by stepping into the vocal role himself, sounding like Iggy on a live wire with occasional attempts at weird, wailed crooning, while his electronics and drumming starts sounding a lot more vicious and totally scuzzed as well. It's not the short sharp shock of punk rock per se -- it just sounds like the title puts it, alien, sounds and TV samples firing out of nowhere and throwing the listener off balance. That many numbers are constructed out of short fragments adds to the weird overlay. Even the quieter numbers like "All Data Lost" play around with echo and drone to create disturbing results. The songs themselves allegedly were recorded as the soundtrack to a live sex show, which probably goes a long way towards explaining the sex and sci-fi combination of much of the lyrics. Not to mention the titles -- to quote some at random: "Nova Feedback," "Magnetic Dwarf Reptile," and the truly hilarious "Pigmies in Zee Dark" (there's some creepy crooning on this one) and "Slip It to the Android." The artwork adds to the weird effect -- a hand-colored late fifties 'cool' living room and busty babe setup with the band's and album name hand-scrawled in usual Chrome fashion over it, plus huge disembodied eyes and lips that make everything really disturbing. Overall, the combination of screwy sound and art on a budget placed Chrome as something like West Coast cousins of early Pere Ubu and Destroy All Monsters -- not a bad place to be.

Caught a Slapp Happy song last night and I want to hear more!

I know I do this myself, but I really hate comments where people are "oh, this would be okay if it weren't for x", where x is something that is totally integral to the whole record.

the rec is v. cool as it is and 90% of the drop-ins add to the vibe, but occasionally I'm jolted out of the groove. still love the track, so it's not a slam.

58. PINK FAIRIES Kings of Oblivion (2775 Points, 20 Votes, 1 #1)
RYM: #397 for 1973
http://img13.nnm.ru/5/1/4/5/6/51456c84079c5dcb8fff969b912301e7_full.jpg
http://open.spotify.com/album/7lWUwuIlVrIhnSy7QwfLIt
spotify:album:7lWUwuIlVrIhnSy7QwfLIt

With Wallis singing, playing ingenious guitar and doing nearly all the songwriting (in one case, collaborating with Farren), the resulting Kings of Oblivion is absolutely amazing, a thunderous jolt of electricity with monumental melodies and bizarre sideways lyrics like "I Wish I Was a Girl," the drugged-out "When's the Fun Begin?" and "City Kids." Still brilliant sounding after two decades, Kings is a widely unknown masterpiece that stands on its own but also set the stage for Motörhead, which Wallis and Hawkwind refugee Lemmy initially formed in 1975. – Trouser Press

Proto-punk heavy metal from a trio that was an offshoot of the notorious British hippie-politico band the Deviants. Their first two albums,Never Never Land and What a Bunch of Sweeties, were never released in America, but this third LP adequately captured their neo-psychedelic bashing in spite of flat production and a slim songbook. Guitarist Larry Wallis went on to join the Stiff Records family of eccentrics." -- David Fricke, 1983 RS Record Guide

Of the all the bands that came out of San Francisco's Family Dog community in the late 60s, London expatriates the Pink Fairies were easily the most transgressive. The Pink Fairies' first two albums each have their moments, but it is the Larry Wallis incarnation of the band, which produced Kings of Oblivion, that established the Fairies as one of the wildest, most erratic, and brilliant acts of 70s. 

The Pink Fairies were omitted from the 2004 album guide. -- schmiddt, Rolling Stone's 500 Worst Reviews of All Time.

This was The Pink Fairies’ last stand right before the rot of inactivity from lack of funds set in and cancelled their Polydor contract. An album of soaring Marshall Superfuzz anthems and Ladbroke Grooves, this was their last album while they were still (for a short time, anyway) a cohesive unit. The undertow of Paul Rudolph leaving in 1972, the sacking Mick Wayne after one shite single and a tour cancelled after a few gigs left The Fairies down to just the rhythm section of drummer Russell Hunter and bassist Sandy Sanderson. Their old friend Mick Farren suggested a replacement guitarist he knew from years earlier who had performed at the Phun City festival he had organised. The guitarist was none other than Larry Wallis, who had moved onto later-period Blodwyn Pig and then UFO before Farren’s suggestion. Lazza Wallis: a true Pink Fairy if there ever was one! He brought not only his cranked Stratocaster riffing and a good sense of structured songwriting to hang his flowing reckless guitar style upon, but a gleeful sense of humour and overall wiseacre rock and roll sensibility. “City Kids” (co-written by Wallis and Sanderson) is a street punk anthem of raving, speeding, hanging out and when Wallis sings the line “Park the car/And ruuuuuun” it’s about as “Under My Wheels”-era Alice Cooper as it gets. “I Wish I Was A Girl” begins another musical fray with soaring intro guitar and Russell Hunter spraying all his cymbals like a Merseybeat Ringo on methedrine and if that’s Sanderson on bass it was his most pronounced playing ever on record. An elongated bridge in the middle continues as Wallis’ guitars have now four-folded into an overdubbed, pile driving ecstasy, yet it’s beyond mere boogie as the momentum keeps plateau-ing up and up. Lazza’s guitar is not only melody but rhythm as well, as Hunter and Sanderson keep getting in and out of sync and overcompensate with just thrashing it out. The title gets repeated over and over as a faded mantra to the back of this rough and ready work out. “When’s The Fun Begin?” is a Notting Hill Gate doper weaving down a deserted West London street, the only light his blurred vision can see is the reflection of street lights on the wet tarmac. It’s coiled and tense yet opiate-slackened at the same time, and Hunter’s bashing over Wallis’ foot-controlled police siren solo make the bust inevitable as the vocals are shoved into the back of a police van -- the last words a panned, repeated phrase on the fadeout.

By this time the album has such a weirdly energetic and wasted atmosphere, you wonder how they can JUST keep it from falling apart. Larry Wallis’ structured songwriting and stunningly raw liquid-feel guitar playing keeps the sole surviving rhythm section busy, and the riotous instrumental, “Raceway” is where the three-man Fairies blast-out in a mid-sized hall at full volume with bright white overhead spotlights flicker on and off in an off-beat pattern catching the three longhairs in the act of proceeding to pummel their disbelieving audience. If Russell Hunter had four arms, he still wouldn’t be hitting half as many cymbals as he does here while multiple Wallis solos are bending in the air over the trio. The coda is a flurry of high-pitched “Axe Victim” riffing, but trapped in a mandrax haze at twice the speed. “Chambermaid” and “Street Urchin” round out an album most people weren’t expecting from The Pink Fairies at this point in time: a strong, vibrant testimony to their no-bullshit rock and roll. And live it was even shatteringly LOUDER than before, which is damn near incomprehensible and frightening to even think about. – The Seth Man, Head Heritage

London’s Portobello Road must have been an interesting scene in the early 70s with The Edgar Broughton Band, Hawkwind, Deviants and Pink Fairies playing mostly free shows to hippies, anarchists and biker gangs. Pink Fairies were influenced by both post-beatnik jokesters The Fugs and the MC5. By their third album, Kings Of Oblivion, MC5 was more of a factor with the help of Larry Wallis. Wallis went on to create an early template for Motörhead based on the album, even re-cutting opener “City Kids” on his recordings with Lemmy. It was also considered a key pre-punk influence. One only has to up the tempo of “Raceway” slightly to be reminded of Buzzcocks‘ “Fast Cars.” Or perhaps a slightly less cartoonish precursor to The Dictators Go Girl Crazy. Either way, it’s damn fun. -- Fastnbulbous

review
[-] by Dave Thompson

The third and final Pink Fairies studio album, Kings of Oblivion, welcomed guitarist Larry Wallis to the brew, bringing with him some of the band's most remarkable -- and concise -- material yet. The opening "City Kids," famously recut by Motörhead during Wallis' sojourn with that band, is as dynamic an opener as the Pink Fairies ever had, while the album's two epics, "I Wish I Was a Girl" and "Street Urchin," similarly catch the band as they made a sharp turn away from the rockin' riff jam basics that scarred their second LP, What a Bunch of Sweeties, and moved instead into the affirmative guttercat stance that so effectively predicted the rudiments of punk rock. Indeed, if any album could be said to have been born ahead of its time, Kings of Oblivion, conceived in 1973 but sounding just like 1977, is it. In common with the rest of the remastered Pink Fairies albums, Kings of Oblivion divides its bonus tracks between unfamiliar versions of familiar material (most pressingly, an urgent alternate mix of "City Kids") and non-album material. This includes two versions of the loping "Well Well Well" and the country rock-ish "Hold On" dating from 1972, and a single cut with Wallis' short-lived predecessor, Mick Wayne, and it's gratifying to have them on CD at last. Truly, though, Kings of Oblivion could exist just as happily without the extras; greeted at the time as the Pink Fairies' best album, it remains a tightly coiled, furiously adrenalined beast, the summation of everything that the Pink Fairies promised and all that subsequent reunions have continued to deliver.

need to pop out for an hour hopefully wont be too long

voted for both Alien Soundtracks and Paranoid, so w00t!

hellhouse your adjectives are killing me!

ha, yes, I'm apparently transitioning to str8 word-cloud jpegs.

More on Paranoid:

These would be English Kings of heavy metal are eternally foiled by their stupidity and intractability. In the early 70s their murky drone was all the more appealling for it's cynicism - the philosophy that everything is crap and a flirtation with pre-Exorcist demonic possession. Time has passed them by; their recent stuff is a quaint bore. -- Ken Tucker, 1983 RS Record Guide)

I love it when RS's "criticism" amounts to nothing more than the reviewer's insistence that a band is irrelevant. Especially when it ends up demonstrating Rolling Stone's irrelevance. Ken Tucker initially gave Paranoid two stars in the first edition of the record guide, but downgraded it to one star in the second edition - along with every other Black Sabbath album. That's eleven one star albums in total - apparently, there is no distinguishing between, say, a record like Master of Reality... and Never Say Die!, their ninth (nor does he mention that Ozzy left the band after this album).

In the Ozzy Osbourne entry in the 1983 guide, on the other hand, George Arthur characterizes "his Ozness" somewhat more positively, describing the music as an amusing novelty ("Dispensing bone-headed metaphysics over codified Brit hard-rock guitar, his Ozness ranks with the Addams Family and Creepy Crawlers as product for teen horror/laughs market."). Arthur rated Diary of a Madman three stars - a full two stars above every Black Sabbath album.

Nick Tosches' original 4/15/71 review of Paranoid is just insane, by the way:

"He fills the hookah bowl with black opium tars and a dash of Asthmador powders...in the corner of the room, clutching a smuggled police photo of Sharon Tate with her hacked-off tit crammed up her snatch, a lone boy masturbates slowly, moaning 'tempora mutantur et nos muta-mur in illis.'"

Uhhhhhh...

The Tosches review refers to Kip Trevor as the lead vocalist for Sabbath. Kip was actually the frontman for a band called Black Widow. According to Wikipedia:

"Black Widow were a rock band that formed in Leicester, England in September 1969. The band were mostly known for its early use of satanic and occult imagery in their music and stage act. The band were often compared with the better-known Heavy metal band Black Sabbath, but the bands were only superficially similar."

HA HA HA!!

Paranoid was #130 on RS's 500 greatest albums list. -- schmidtt, Rolling Stone's 500 Worst Reviews of All Time

What's with the all Pink Fairies' albums?

People like them

You mean like one guy voted them #1, #2 and #3?

that one got 20 votes

57. ZZ TOP Tres Hombres (2807 Points, 20 Votes)
RYM: #63 for 1973 , #1709 overall | Acclaimed: #965 | RS: #498
http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0002/492/MI0002492533.jpg?partner=allrovi.com
http://open.spotify.com/album/0Em8m9kRctyH9S3MTXAHvY
spotify:album:0Em8m9kRctyH9S3MTXAHvY

http://www.superseventies.com/oaaa/oaaa_zztop3.jpg

Besides spawning two incredible albino rock & blues brothers and one late first lady of the boogie, Texas is becoming one hell of a place to say you're from. The whole Southern rock & roll sound seems to be catching on as fast as a swig of potato liquor reaching the brain.

ZZ Top makes no bones about being cowboys who used to be in the psychedelic music scene and who have recently discovered the joys of guzzling beer and driving their cars and bikes at 110 miles an hour. Tres Hombres is a definite step back to their white blues roots. Their second album, Rio Grande Mud, had an English feel in the production end with Rolling Stones-type tunes such as "Chevrolet" and the Brown Sugarish "Francene." ZZ Top have shown in all three of their recordings the dynamic rhythms that only the finest of the three-piece bands can cook up. Billy Gibbons plays a tasty Duane Allman lead with Dusty Hill and Frank Beard pounding out the funky bottom.

Tres Hombres was recorded with their live performances in mind. Minimal echo and lots of live-sounding jamming. "Waiting for the Bus" is a mean muddled track reminiscent of early Canned Heat complete with the usual repetitive three-chord lick. Vocally, ZZ have an advantage over most white rockers in that these Southerners sound black anyway with lines like..."You don't have to worry, 'cause takin' care of business is his name" -- sung by Gibbons in a drawl so thick he would do Leadbelly justice.

ZZ Top seem to be at least one of the most inventive of the three-piece rockers but they are only one of several competent Southern rocking bands. I do wonder when the audiences will get tired of hearing the same..."Poot yawl hans together" patter. -- Steve Apple, RS

Tres Hombres marked ZZ Top's elevation into the megaleague as one of the biggest touring acts in the United States. The jury will probably always be out on which was the better of ZZ's two great eras -- straight-down-the-line blues rock (1970s) or pumpin' blues disco (1980s and '90s). What is indisputable is that their Texas roots were absolutely inseparable from their down 'n' dirty sound.

Tres Hombres is a showcase of everything that is magnificent about the group -- and the inclusion of the huge hit "La Grange" is only part of that story. In fact, "La Grange," based around a riff so simple yet so inspired that you will never forget it, is atypical for its mumbling novelty vocal. "Precious and Grace" -- a song about picking up a couple of hitch-hiking women who turn out to be ex-cons -- mixes a great Led Zep-styled riff in the verse with a ripsnorting near-psychedelic chorus. The two devices come together seamlessly. "Move Me On Down the Line" is a snappy boogie that sounds indebted to post-Cream Jack Bruce. "Jesus Just Left Chicago" is another gem of a track, fluid and apparently effortless. The incredible "Master of Sparks" concerns a fine Texas tradition, the habit of kickin' your buddies off the back of a speeding pickup just for the heck of it.

The cover of the album -- the original vinyl is a gatefold that opens on a garish photograph of the Mexican dish after which the record is named -- says it all, really, though the oblique cover shots of the threesome hide the fact that these guys were only in their mid-twenties. -- David Nichols, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

review
[-] by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Tres Hombres is the record that brought ZZ Top their first Top Ten record, making them stars in the process. It couldn't have happened to a better record. ZZ Top finally got their low-down, cheerfully sleazy blooze-n-boogie right on this, their third album. As their sound gelled, producer Bill Ham discovered how to record the trio so simply that they sound indestructible, and the group brought the best set of songs they'd ever have to the table. On the surface, there's nothing really special about the record, since it's just a driving blues-rock album from a Texas bar band, but that's what's special about it. It has a filthy groove and an infectious feel, thanks to Billy Gibbons' growling guitars and the steady propulsion of Dusty Hill and Frank Beard's rhythm section. They get the blend of bluesy shuffles, gut-bucket rocking, and off-beat humor just right. ZZ Top's very identity comes from this earthy sound and songs as utterly infectious as "Waitin' for the Bus," "Jesus Just Left Chicago," "Move Me on Down the Line," and the John Lee Hooker boogie "La Grange." In a sense, they kept trying to remake this record from this point on -- what is Eliminator if not Tres Hombres with sequencers and synthesizers? -- but they never got it better than they did here.

There was definitely a bit of Pink Fairies campaigning, too.