In the early 1970's Lou Reed was ingesting industrial ammounts of speed, shaving swastikas into his hair and making children cry on his albums. The twat. Meanwhile his fellow VU founder John Cale was producing classic albums by The Stooges, The Modern Lovers, and Patti Smith and collaborating with Nick Drake and Brian Eno. In the midst of all this, he also found time to write and record a succession of fantastic solo albums, the best of which was 1973's Paris 1919. A stately, haunting collection of baroque pop songs, there's a distinct classical feeling to many of the compositions on Paris 1919 but with an underlying pop sensibility that makes this perhaps Cale's most accessible album. The songs often resemble short-stories with their cryptic, allusive lyrics replete with references to Dylan Thomas, Shakespeare and Graham Greene. The central feeling of the album is one of dislocation, of being cut off from a beloved time or place and set adrift in a surreal, post-war vision of Europe. "A Child's Christmas In Wales" is a superficially jaunty piano-led tune with an underlying current of nostalgia for Cale's welsh childhood and "Andalucia" is a drifting, weightless ballad that floats along on delicate fingerpicked guitar. Paris 1919 [buy it here] was re-issued last year and in my opinion it's one of the most unusual and best pop albums of all time.
John Cale - A Child's Christmas In Wales
John Cale - Andalucia
