Word: underground
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Reed was half the brains behind The Velvet Underground. Andy Warhol's slightly successful excursion into rock as theater. The other half was John Cale. Seems that John used to tread upon Lou's rock 'n' roll shoes a lot in those days. It got to the point where the band wasn't big enough for both of them, so Cale split, leaving the Velvets to some good rock 'n' roll for a year or so. Now Lou's gone the way of his good friend David Bowie, but he's still supposed to know how to rock 'n' roll...
What follows is, then, a very personal list of some of the best signs of things stirring in 1972. I have omitted "underground giants" like John Fahey and Leo Kottke mostly because, from what I've listened to, their good albums from any year are among the best albums every year. I've also tried to be somewhat representative; while I'm suspicious of arbitrary distinctions between so-called traditional folk, folk-rock, folk-blues, popular folk, and country, I've used my vague sense of these to pick it list touching all of them...
...ACADEMY IN PERIL; John Cale (Reprise, $5.98). A bizarre, whimsical but steadfastly intriguing serving of pop esoterica from a young composer who has worked with both John Cage and the rock group, Velvet Underground. Cale's orchestral writing (played by the Royal Philharmonic) often sounds like ersatz Charles Ives, Cale's piano parts (played by Cale himself) like sleepy Debussy. Yet within their pop context, they possess a kind of "laid-back" mood that may just appeal to the rock young...
...then decided to build the power station underground and received an FPC license...
...enough backs branded with "I'art pour I'art"? Can't we begin to get a feel for the class-nature of Signet aesthetic ideology? From what sort of myopia does Rich suffer that she will read to this literary elite as long as its sexism is kept politely underground...