Hey R&P. Is anyone up for writing a brief, retrospective and nostalgic album review?

OK, I'll try... Beatles' Rubber Soul album, 1965. At the time, I was a new (sucky) "lead guitarist", about age 18, and we glomped onto the early part of the Brit Invasion, to get gigs (and girls). This one did well enough that we even called our band "The Rubber Band", and got a great local following. Musically, we were perplexed by having to break out of the three-chord stuff, so actually kind of resented that. We also did a bunch of Animals, Kinks, Troggs, and Zombies. Guitar, bass, drums, Farfisa electric piano, and a (good) vocalist.

The tunes themselves were all over the place. Everybody liked Drive My Car, and I'm Looking Through You, which rocked (later joined by Ticket To Ride and Paperback Writer). Michelle and Nowhere Man were decent slower songs for our gigs. I personally liked Norwegian Wood, but ya can't get people to dance with a 3/4 waltz.

The country-ish stuff was a non-starter, like I've Just Seen a Face, and What Goes On. The rest was like so-what boring Brit stuff. Over the years that followed, I came around to others, especially In My Life, once I had one.

Here's a decent cover (hard to get the real stuff on Youtube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcQDqZIN09I...

Nostalgia is in layers for me. I recall playing a real SG, through a beige Fender Bandmaster amp, both purchased new for like $600 at the time. Would need to add a zero to that, these days. Then there was The girl - yeah I got a late start. Then the damned war, in 1966, and serious weed waiting for it, and in it.

In My Life caught up to me after that. That's enough. Tomorrow Never Knows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UjvdZm-Tu8

Sounds like a fun exercise, Sarge! Let me use this answer as a place-holder and get to answerin' when I'm done.

Hey there Euan. About a week ago I popped onto YouTube to listen to 'Roundabout', which has always been my favorite Yes song, and was dismayed to learn there is some insipid meme surrounding that song now. Something about a manga either written by or about some guy called Jojo, I wasn't interested enough to investigate the matter. So I left a pissed off, smartass comment with a rock reference in it, one any and all of our core group of R&Pers would get, and despite several replies nobody got the reference until today, previous replies were all from Jojo fanboys. Quite disheartening.

Anyway, my interest in Yes was rekindled and three or four days ago I listened to 'The Yes Album' in its entirety and just loved it, far more than I remember liking it 30 years ago or more the last time I heard it. When I saw your question I decided to go listen to 'Fragile' too, and since it used to be my favorite of their albums I was fully expecting to be transported once again.

Boy was I disappointed. I enjoyed the radio staples 'Roundabout' and 'Long Distance Runaround' as much as I ever did but found the rest of the album to range from mediocre to downright irritating. None of it made any sense to me, it felt like it was all over the place. The longer tracks were okay but other than the two I mentioned they were only that... okay. I kept wishing they'd end and move on to something, hopefully, more stimulating. The shorter tracks had me shaking my head, I just don't get what they were trying to say. 'Cans and Brahms' and 'We Have Heaven' both sounded like something you'd hear on a playground where small children are playing jump-rope or on a merry-go-round. Both did have me wondering how much of an influence this album was on Korn's debut album, which had tracks with a similar feel only amped up tenfold. I enjoyed 'The Fish' but it sounded like something you'd hear at a Renaissance fair and seemed totally alien to the rest of the album.

I kinda wish I hadn't listened to it again, I much prefer my former memory of it to the one I'll have now.

I was able to pick up a copy of "Thirteenth Step" by A Perfect Circle just days before shipping out for my first Iraq tour. That album turned out to be a staple that helped me get through the experience. It's ironic that Thirteenth Step helped a Soldier get through a combat deployment, as A Perfect Circle was such an anti-war band that their next entire CD, "emotive", was entirely anti-war songs, mostly covers. But back to Thirteenth Step: "Pet" and "Gravity", both songs near the end of the album, were my favorites, but the entire record was fantastic and consistent.

It's hard to listen to that album for me now; as much as I love it, it just always tends to bring back intense memories of that deployment. It wasn't my first or last combat deployment, but it was the first time I ever feared on a daily basis that I might die that day. IEDs, car bombs, and indirect mortar fire were daily occurrences...usually ineffective, but at times the insurgents got lucky. It was hard to fall asleep at night, and sleep really soundly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0aBncEcCHE

Coincidentally I also want to talk about a David Gray album, in this case A New day at Midnight. It was 2007 when I discovered it, and it accompanied me during a job I had the second half of that year. I kept listening to it the next year very frequently and it has stayed with me ever since, I listen to it maybe five, seven times a year, I just don't let it go. It's very well structured, and I like every song.