1974: January to June

Even though the headline reads January to June, there is no reason to worry. 1974 was also an excellent year for music that will most likely need to be divided into three blog entries, like 1973. As it has been for several years now, the beginning of the year always seems to be a little slower than its end. Hence, more months now and fewer later.

In January 1974 there was only one new album release worth mentioning, but it was quite a release. Brian Eno began his impressive solo career by releasing his debut album Here Come the Warm Jets. The artist was obviously still looking for his own voice, given the disparity between the songs contained on the record. There was variance from beautiful melodies and instrumentals to aggressive noise such as Blank Frank above, where you can hear Robert Fripp really overdo it with his electric guitar.

Ian Gillan's departure from Deep Purple was big news at the time. On the new album Burn, out on 15 February, he had been replaced with David Coverdale, an extremely talented hard rock singer in his own right. The title track became one of my winter favorites.

For me, another departure from progressive rock was the American duo Steely Dan. Their version of rock sounded as if it belonged into a night club rather than a concert stage. With their polished production values, they always sounded somewhat sterile but in spite of that their third album Pretzel Logic contained several songs that I enjoyed. The album was out on 20 February and its opener Rikki Don't Lose That Number became a classic.

On 1 March, it was time for Camel to release their second album Mirage, and what an album it was. Even though their debut showed some promise, this was something that I surely wasn't prepared for. An uncompromising approach to their brand of progressive rock produced an end result that you really needed to concentrate on to get most out of it. Typically, in these days artists created music that was best to listen to with headphones, as opposed to in a noisy clubs or restaurants like today.

Again, my favorite songFreefall represents the easier end of the album, but do check out the more challenging tracks as well. I like them too. Below, you can listen to the entire album if you like. Please concentrate, use headphones if it helps. Freefall is the opening track.

I already mentioned Strawbs earlier. Following Rick Wakeman's departure, they continued their recording career and its pinnacle is, in my opinion, Hero and Heroine that was released some time early in the year. I haven't found out even the month, let alone an exact date, but the release must have taken place in late winter or early spring because album recording was completed already in November, 1973. Songs like the title track, Autumn and Sad Young Man are among the very best in the group's output.

And then, spring was coming. The Dutch prog group Focus, mentioned already a couple of times before, released their magnum opus Hamburger Concerto in April. The title track was already discussed last year when it reached #20 on the Top 20 Long Prog Masterpieces list. You can read about it here and listen to it below.

May 1974 became quite a stunner for me. Around my eleventh birthday, two albums were released by artists that have not been mentioned in this blog before. Both of these albums were very good, and more importantly they both contained one song that immediately hooked me. Let's begin with the one that was slightly less significant to me at the time.

The British pop/rock group 10cc had already released their self titled debut album in 1973. While I did like Rubber Bullets, that album was not that impressive to me. The second album Sheet Music, however was and its opener The Wall Street Shuffle was one of the most important tracks of the whole year. It also became a moderate hit as a single and helped the group break through.

But the ultimate experience in quality music came from America. Sparks sounded very un-Californian; in fact, at the time I thought they were British. Their style seemed to originate more from there than from the West Coast. The Mael brothers Ron and Russell had already released two albums previously, but they had gone largely unnoticed - which is hardly surprising since they are quite uninspired efforts. Kimono My House, however, was something totally different. It came to the rock music scene with a bang and guaranteed that from then on, Sparks was a household name.

The song that immediately hooked me was the opening track, masterful This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us. It is far from being the only great song on the album. Amateur Hour, Thank God It's Not Christmas, Hasta Mañana Monsieur and particularly Here in Heaven were all among the greatest art rock tracks of the year. Below, you can enjoy a "live" performance: the group is performing on stage but the music is coming from tape.

June saw the release of three interesting singles but no albums. Mott the Hoople made one more single that wouldn't be contained on their next (and final as Mott the Hoople) album, due out later the same year. Foxy, Foxy was yet another decent song from the group that would proceed to release another single a little later. We will get back to it at the appropriate time: it would briefly get the group back to master class.

The other two June single releases were both among the best of the year. Electric Light Orchestra was now preparing to publish their fourth album. To pique their audience's interest, they released the first single taken from it, and as you can hear below, it was a magnificent piece of work. Can't Get it Out of My Head represents seventies popular music at its most beautiful. The album Eldorado followed a little later, let's get back to it then.

And finally, on 28 June, a most unbelievable single was released. Mike Oldfield had been problematic for radio stations because he recorded no singles that could be given radio play. Yet the man was a megastar following Tubular Bells and its exposure in the film The Exorcist. It seems that his record company pressed him to create a short composition for release as a single. In addition to getting radio play, another reason for this may have been the upcoming second album, for which there was a need for raising public awareness.

However, Oldfield did not compose anything new for a single, or pick a snippet from the upcoming next album. Instead, he revisited the weaker Part 2 of Tubular Bells and completely rearranged one of its less memorable sequences, slowing it down at the same time. The end result became an instant classic and, dare I write this, in my opinion the best thing that Oldfield ever did!

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE. The video above plays the only correct version of Mike Oldfield's Single - the original 1974 mix. To have it preserved like this represents an important work in upholding our cultural legacy. Since 1974, Oldfield has included it in at least one collection, which you can find for example behind this link but where he has tampered with it by unnecessarily adding guitars and most likely some other minor changes as well. Please avoid that version - although now that it is in Spotify, it is most likely becoming the "definitive" version of this beautiful composition which is just plain wrong.