Advantages: sound quality easlly high enough for true hi fi stereo applications, flexibility, controls, price
Disadvantages: understated looks, no go faster branding.

...Overture 2's Cables/Interconnects: Audio Note ANV silver Music Used (Genre/Selections): Pop, Rock, Acoustic, Classical Room Size (LxWxH): 16 x 12 x 9 Room Comments/Treatments: Large rugs, thick curtains, cork rear wall. Product Owner... Read review

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Advantages: Title track
Disadvantages: Patchy stuff

...Lulu made the title track a big hit in the 70’s and it’s a catchy number, but this early album of Bowie’s still finds him struggling vainly to settle on style. There is a lot of guitar driven rock here and he tried some of his later more contrived lyrical styles, but it feels like a bit orthodox when compared to some of his later stuff. Like much of his early RCA catalogue it got repackaged and reissued later on, but wasn’t something that really set the world aloud. I used to have this album, because I was a Bowie completeist at one stage of my life, but I grew to find it largely unlistenable and I’d characterise it as one good single and a load of attempts at mystery which turns out to be mere filler.... Read review

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Advantages: Tracks like Who and Muscles
Disadvantages: Too many mediocre tracks

...Riding high on the success of her multi-million selling album, Why Do Fools Fall In Love (1981), her first project for RCA Records, Ross returned to the recording studios at the dawn of 1982 to self-produce another studio album (her contractual obligation was to deliver one album per year for RCA). Ross was clearly enjoying experimenting and divulging her music into other genres. With Silk Electric (1982) she completely tried to shake off and escape the style that had made her famous. Ross was obviously trying to create a new, distinctive sound to keep up with the ever changing musical tastes of the 80's but as a result her music lost a lot of its fire on this album. However Silk Electrics' premier single was something of a pop masterpiece. That track was of course the slinky, evocative Muscles written and produced by the all... Read review

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Advantages: Up close and intimate during Ziggy's birth
Disadvantages: Huh??

.../Starman/Space Oddity/Changes/Oh! You Pretty Things/Andy Warhol/Lady Stardust/Rock 'N Roll Suicide Fans of "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" will home in on this disc. Many of the tunes here are more immediately hard-edged than the “official” versions on your RCA vinyl (or remastered CD). This is Ziggy Stardust blistering the backside of rock’n’roll with the help of occasional flashes of Martian Spider-genius, and boy, are they having a good time. Listen to Ronson’s fingerboard slashing on “Moonage Daydream” and tell me the man wasn’t ahead of his time. Bowie gives the nod to Lou Reed with a high-energy version of “White Light White Heat”, and the overall impression is that all tracks are rougher and louder than the sugared vinyl versions we know. Bloody good stuff and wicked fun – play ‘em back to back and see what I mean... Read review

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Advantages: Great potential
Disadvantages: Very much a debut album

...The Tourists were a power pop outfit whose brightest moment was the Dusty Springfield cover, I Only Wanna Be With You, which made number 5 in 1979. After they split up, their driving and creative force, Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox formed a new partnerships with the Eurythmics, which took a very different approach to the Tourists. They recorded some demos with DAF drummer Robert Gorl, and ex-Can members Jackie Liebezeit and Holger Czukay in Conny Plank’s studio in Cologne. The demos were taken up by RCA and provided the material for the first album In The Garden in 1981. Blondie drummer Clem Burke fleshed out the sound and the LP displayed a wide range of styles, from passionate pop to avant garde electronics. The uptempo feel of the music was often undercut by Annie’s moody, aching lyrics and powerful vocals, as in the track... Read review

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Advantages: Disposable
Disadvantages: Pretentions...moi?

..., and then Mick by Andrew David Scott (b. 30 June 1949, Wrexham, Wales) and the new line-up signed to RCA. The band were introduced to the writing partnership of Chinn and Chapman, who were to provide the band with a string of hit singles. Their initial success was down to bubblegum pop anthems such as Funny Funny, Co-Co, Poppa Joe and Little Willy. However, the band were writing their own hard-rock numbers on the b-sides of these hits. This resulted in Chinn/Chapman coming up with heavier pop-rock numbers, most notably the powerful Blockbuster, which reached number 1 in the UK at the beginning of 1973. The group's determinedly effete, glam-rock image was reinforced by a succession of Top 10 hits, including Hell Raiser, Ballroom Blitz, Teenage Rampage and The Six Teens." Now that's all you bleeding really need to know - The Sweet were an integral... Read review

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Advantages: It's Bowie
Disadvantages: None come to mind

...After creating new musical ideas and inspirations for “Low” and refining them while recording and producing Iggy’s Pops album “The Idiot” Bowie returned to the Hansa studio’s in Berlin in the Summer of 1977 to begin work on his own recording called “Heroes”, for this album he assembled a small but powerful cast of musicians which where as follows: - Carlos Alomar (rhythm guitar) George Murray (bass) Dennis Davis (drums) Brian Eno (keyboards and guitar treatments) Tony Visconti production and on lead guitar ex-King Crimson member Robert Fripp. The reason that Eno had brought Fripp along he later recalled was that he would best respond by being surprised into action, Eno said “ We put the songs on, these songs he’d never heard, he didn’t know what the chords where going... Read review

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Advantages: Great artist
Disadvantages: Ziggy has gone

.... Then of the back of a 6 song demo was to come the outstanding “Hunky Dory” album and it contained classics such as “Changes” and “Life on Mars”. RCA had now signed Bowie and after Hunky Dory you knew that something special was about to happen and Bowie certainly didn’t let his fans down. There it was on the shelf and it was named “ Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”. I gave the girl my money and off I went and that album was to make me a Bowie fan in a big way. That amazing track “Rock N Roll Suicide” and so many other great tracks like “Lady Stardust” and the hit single “Starman”. But the Ziggy album was to be more than just an album as it was to create a pop monster called Ziggy. In the summer of 1972 in London he was to put on a show that would never be surpassed for sheer rock and roll creation and imagination. Bowie had now become... Read review

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Advantages: It's Bowie
Disadvantages: None come to mind

...delicate 12 string acoustic guitar. There is some name-dropping and some highbrow references to Alistair Crowley, a diabolist and self styled "wicked man in the world" this song works because of one of the most moving melodies of any Bowie song, the line Bowie sings "playing in a silent film" he is setting himself up as a bit-part actor waiting for a starring role, in the days of vinyl that was the end of side 1. This track also appeared as the B-side to the single "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide (catalogue number RCA LPBO5021) What was the second side starts with the cover song "Fill your Heart" this is a track written by the American songwriter team of Biff Rose and Paul Williams which is a shining example of this albums forced jollity. The words to the track read like some forgotten Hippy manifesto with its talk of "happiness is here today... Read review

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Advantages: A totally brilliant album.
Disadvantages: Less of the original rebellious Anti-Flag present here.

...and thought put in to it, creating a high energy song which just makes you want to dance!! Cities Burn... This song has major influences from the bands new record company RCA. This is actually a killer pop song, it is lively, easy to dance to and will definitely appeal to those of you who don't enjoy punk as much as I do. Even though this song seems a bit of a sell out, even I can't complain and still find it strangely satisfying!!! Depleted Uranium Is A War Crime...is the most anti-war driven song on the album. To explain the meaning of the song to its listeners the track has a professional announcer talking over with the introduction, interlude and conclusion professional announcer who informs us of it's meaning and detriments. This is the fasted most vocal song on the album and is easily one of my favorite songs, and one of my most recommended... Read review

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