Saturday, February 8, 2014

Dean’s favourite albums #17 – The Whiff of Bedlam – James Reyne


 
As lead singer of Australian Crawl, James Reyne was the quintessential rock star. He then went onto an impressive solo career, which is showing no signs of slowing down. His popularity was at its peak in the 80’s, his debut self titled album in particular was very successful. Although those 80’s albums have great moments on them, they have dated a little, and I think you need to do turn to the 90’s and even the 2000’s to hear his best work. Albums like “Design for Living”, “Speedboats for Breakfast” and “Every Man a King” are all great and certainly could have pushed for selection on this list.


I have however chosen 1994’s “The Whiff of Bedlam” as my top James Reyne album. A mature album, it opens with a wispy electric piano led track, “Who the Hell do Think You Are” and then there is not a dud track on the album. Some of my favourites are “Red Light Avenue” (see link), the catchy “Uptown Ruler”, “Goin’ Fishing”, “Poor Man in the Penthouse” and the great closer “A Day on the Sun”, which grows on me more and more with every listen.

 


 

Next time – we reach #16, and some alternative Aussie rock and roll from the 90’s!

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