If you have a music lover on your Christmas shopping list, you have plenty of options as far as style and quantity are concerned. Here are a few suggestions of both old and new releases.
Pearl Jam, Lightning Bolt
The guys from Seattle keep pushing as far away from a nostalgia act as hard as they can. The punkish Mind Your Manners proves they still have a lot of octane left in their tanks. The album title couldn’t be more apt.
Pearl Jam, 10
The album that made the world take notice. Songs like Jeremy and Evenflow have become grunge era classics as strange as grunge and classics sound together.
Jimi Hendrix, Miami Pop Festival
Though Hendrix was an excellent recording artist his live performances were on a whole different level. His performance at the Miami Pop Festival in 1968 came about a year after he broke big in America and marked the beginning of a more expansive sound and musical expression.
Jimi Hendrix, Electric Ladyland
Jimi’s production techniques compliment his guitar playing on this 1968 release and gives a glimpse of where he was heading on his musical journey. Songs like All Along the Watchtower and Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) are part of just about every aspiring guitarist’s repertoire.
The Beatles, On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2
These live sessions at the BBC show just how accomplished the boys from Liverpool were reflecting the many hours they played together in England and Germany in the years preceding their rise to super stardom. They could write and record pretty good too.
The Beatles, White Album
Though largely a collection of solo writing projects from Paul and John there are a few gems of collaboration like Birthday and Back in the USSR that serve as an example of how unique and amazing the Beatles sound was. There’s also the incredible George Harrison song, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, that reflects his concern about the world we live in and how it was closing in on him and his band mates.
The Rolling Stones, Sweet Summer Sun, Hyde Park Live
Stones fans have been showing up at the band’s last tour for over 25 years now. Who could have imagined Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Charlie would still be touring in 2013? For a band whose youngest member won’t see 60 again, they can still put on a show that’s worth the high ticket prices.
The Rolling Stones, Beggars Banquet
This release from the sixties is an almost all acoustic album that somehow manages to electrify more than many of the Stones Albums. The classic Street Fighting Man seems very appropriate in the social environment of today and Sympathy for the Devil inspired legions of musicians on the darker side of music.