Sondheim and Bernstein's 1957 musical has been reborn as a new Hollywood blockbuster – and a 180g reissue of the original recording. Steve Sutherland reports
The twenty seventh of September 1957, the morning after the night before, and the reviews are in... 'The most savage, restless, electrifying dance patterns we've been exposed to in a dozen seasons... a profoundly moving show that is as ugly as the city jungles and also pathetic, tender and forgiving... flaring scores that capture the shrill beat of life in the streets... The astringent score has moments of tranquillity and rapture, and occasionally a touch of sardonic humour… This is a bold new different kind of musical…'
Boasting three of his most cherished songs, this LP would put Stevens in the vanguard of the '70s singer-songwriter movement. Steve Sutherland hears the 180g reissue
In Malibu, it seems, miracles really do happen. 'I was an Englishman. I didn't know it wasn't wise to go out at that time of day and take a swim, so I did. I decided to turn back and head for shore and at that point I realised, "I'm fighting the Pacific". There was no way I was going to win. There was no-one on this earth who could help me so I did the most instinctive thing... I called out to God and said, "God, if you save me, I'll work for you", and in that moment a wave came from behind me and pushed me forward. He saved me... The tide somehow had changed and I was able to get back to land.'
The Dublin quartet's second album took three years to produce and cost them their record deal, but Steve Sutherland couldn't be happier to hear it once again
Before we get started, be warned: 'It's too easy for this album to turn you into a pretentious t**t.' These aren't my words by the way. They're from a book all about Loveless by an American chap called Mike McGonigal, who immediately goes on to prove his point by stating that the first time he heard the album in question, he felt, 'as if I'd been suspended upside down in a tank filled with beautiful fish'.
The singer-songwriter's sophomore album from 1989, reissued on 180g vinyl, showcased her lyrical wit and Johnny Marr's lush guitar licks, says Steve Sutherland
What can you buy for £61? A new pair of trainers at a discount store? A set of Sennheiser HD 200 PRO closed-back headphones? A Billie Holiday Classic Lady Day vinyl box set?
For this fifth long-player, the thrash-metal pioneers transformed into heavy rock titans. Now the LP is out on 180g vinyl, Steve Sutherland relates its rocky birth
Lars Ulrich is not amused. 'Is this the test pressing?' he asks his manager, Peter Mensch. 'No', Mensch answers emphatically. 'That's the jacket, the cover that's going out across the country.'
Buy this reissue for the title track, says Steve Sutherland, but who was John Barleycorn? The unsparing details will be no surprise to all who have seen The Wicker Man…
Police Sergeant Neil Howie steps inside the bakery. He has flown here, to Summerisle, a small, remote Hebridean island, on a one-man seaplane to investigate the whereabouts of Rowan Morrison, a young schoolgirl who's reported missing. He's been to the school, the church, the library, the pub, the graveyard, even to the Laird of the island's manse, but every local he questions is infuriatingly vague, reluctant to divulge any helpful information.
Steve Sutherland tells how the group's name resulted from a chance find in a reference book and highlights hidden subtleties in this 1971 live set, now on 180g vinyl
Ever heard of bibliomancy? No? Read on… Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was this chap. Let's call him Jerome. Jerome is travelling down a country road when he comes upon a crowd of blokes kicking a corpse and creating a hullabaloo. Our hero stops and he's told the deceased had snuffed it without paying a number of debts he owed to some in the assembled crowd, so there's no way they're going to stump up for a grave-digger to bury him.
Get your Vaccines here on 180g black vinyl (sorry, we couldn't resist), as Steve Sutherland sets out the background story to this UK indie/rock debut album
Remember Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong? Of course you don't. No reason why you should. They didn't amount to a hill of beans. To elucidate: they were one of those thousands of bands heaped on the steaming pile of what was rather cruelly described in the mid-'90s as Landfill Indie.
This month's 180g album reissue takes Steve Sutherland back to the '70s when, after a Knebworth concert, he'd become a Buckley fan and was passing the message on
Who else had a halcyon summer? Mine was in 1974. I'd just left school and was waiting to go to Uni. A few mates clubbed together and bought an old banger and we were off – three months of hi-jinx down to Cornwall and back bookended by a couple of legendary gigs: The Grateful Dead at Alexandra Palace in September; and the first Knebworth Festival, the Bucolic Frolic, in July. For a bunch of lads raised in Wilts in total awe of West Coast Rock, these were not mere gigs, they were pilgrimages, the Knebworth lineup akin to finding the holy grail.
Steve Sutherland listens to the 1980 live album by the American rock singer/songwriter, now in a deluxe vinyl set with extras, and recalls some of its cadaverous lyrics
Enjoy every sandwich.' It was certainly weird as pay-off lines go, but somehow perfect. Famous last words, or advice from the knowingly soon-to-be deceased, are usually offered up with at least a modicum of deep philosophical profundity – sometimes religious, sometimes self-pitying, sometimes peaceful and sometimes panicked, but invariably they are long premeditated and polished for posterity.
Clutching his personally signed sleeve of this 1970 album, Steve Sutherland nonetheless welcomes the 180g vinyl reissue – it's a work of real genius, he says
'I don't wanna talk about that. I just don't know what to say. I respect the fact he's a guy who did what he did and, y'know, he did what he had to do and I don't wanna get any… I prefer to not be involved at all. I certainly don't wanna take advantage of talking about something like that for the interest of somebody else I've never met, and selling myself in a paper in the process. I'd rather you just left it out – it's just distasteful to me.'
Steve Sutherland looks back to the '90s and a group heralded before they'd even released a record. Some thirty years on, their debut LP is reissued on 180g vinyl
It's April 1992 and Suede are the cover stars of the (now defunct) weekly music paper Melody Maker which is running a headline that heralds them as 'The Best New Band In Britain'. This is about to cause quite a hullabaloo, not only because most people have never heard of Suede but also because the band hasn't even released a record so far.
Steve Sutherland recalls a riotous night at the Tacoma Dome, resolved into a thrilling musical event, as the group's 1984 compilation album makes its vinyl debut
The cop to our left is on his radio, talking to back-up: 'I thought Vietnam was bad – you should see the casualty room. They're piled up in there. Piled up man!'
As the Coventry group prepare their second LP things are already starting to fall apart... Steve Sutherland listens to the half-speed-remastered 40th anniversary reissue
Here they are, Britain's most successful and influential breakthrough band, revered by the critics, adored by the fans, unashamedly copied by start-up bands… But Jerry Dammers, the geezer in charge, wants to mess with the magic and do something quite worryingly different.
Steve Sutherland listens again to the debut LP that catapulted a teenage singer to stardom as over half a century later the album is re-released on 180g vinyl
Dylan digs Donovan!' This was the headline on the front cover of British weekly Melody Maker, on the 8th of May 1965. It wasn't true of course – not remotely so.
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