7 March 1975
Released: 7 March 1975
Recorded: February - May 1974, August 1974 - January 1975
Producer: The Glimmer Triplets
Track listing[1]
Side A
Young Americans
Hand of Fate
Fascination
Dance Little Sister
Right
Hand of Fate
Fascination
Dance Little Sister
Right
Side B
Worried About You
Across the Universe
Fool to Cry
Fame
Fingerprint File
Across the Universe
Fool to Cry
Fame
Fingerprint File
David Bowie's fourth solo album Sweet Thing (#5 UK, #3 US) - following his eponymous 1967 debut, 1971's Man of Words and 1973's Pin Ups - was released two months before the Rolling Stones put out their next album, Young Americans. Most of that album had contained leftovers from The Diamond Dogs of Rock 'n' Roll, plus a holdover from Aladdin Sane ("Time") and three new songs - "Win", "Somebody Up There Likes Me" and "Can You Hear Me".
On Young Americans, two tracks were also leftover from the sessions of The Diamond Dogs of Rock 'n' Roll - "Dance Little Sister" and "Fingerprint File". Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' three newer compositions were "Hand of Fate", "Worried About You" and the first single out of the album, "Fool to Cry". It was released on 17 February ahead of the album backed with Bowie's "Young Americans" and reached #6 and #10 in the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively.
Prior to the sessions, Bill Wyman had put out his first solo album, Monkey Grip, on 13 May 1974 under Apple Records, but it only reached #39 in the United Kingdom while barely reaching the Top 100 in America at #99. Meanwhile, the Stones served as the backing group to ex-Faces member Ronnie Wood for his debut on Highway 61 Records, I've Got My Own Album to Do, which was released 13 September 1974.
That same autumn, Jagger and Bowie hung out with John Lennon, attending the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and even attended Lou Reed's concert at the Felt Forum and spent an evening with Bob Dylan whilst the latter was recording his next album, Blood on the Tracks. It was during that time that Lennon had contributed to two tracks on Young Americans; "Fame", a collaboration between himself, Bowie, Jagger, Keith Richards and Carlos Alomar, and a cover version of the Beatles' "Across the Universe" with Bowie on vocals.
JOHN LENNON: "I was never really all that happy when the Beatles first did 'Across the Universe' in '68. Seven years later, David Bowie came in and did that song far better when we could've ever done." (2005)[2]
Young Americans, upon release in March, was the Rolling Stones' first album since 1970's The Men Who Sold the World to not reach #1 in either in the United States or the United Kingdom; instead, it reached #9 and #2 in those respective countries. The July single, "Fame"/"Worried About You" (#17 UK), managed to reach #1 for a week in the United States, however, and received positive reviews. The album itself had received a mixed reception among critics for a shift towards funk and disco music, but since then has been seen more positively.
6 June 1975
Hunky Dory - The Opel EP
On Young Americans, two tracks were also leftover from the sessions of The Diamond Dogs of Rock 'n' Roll - "Dance Little Sister" and "Fingerprint File". Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' three newer compositions were "Hand of Fate", "Worried About You" and the first single out of the album, "Fool to Cry". It was released on 17 February ahead of the album backed with Bowie's "Young Americans" and reached #6 and #10 in the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively.
Prior to the sessions, Bill Wyman had put out his first solo album, Monkey Grip, on 13 May 1974 under Apple Records, but it only reached #39 in the United Kingdom while barely reaching the Top 100 in America at #99. Meanwhile, the Stones served as the backing group to ex-Faces member Ronnie Wood for his debut on Highway 61 Records, I've Got My Own Album to Do, which was released 13 September 1974.
 |
| David Bowie and Mick Jagger, 1974. |
JOHN LENNON: "I was never really all that happy when the Beatles first did 'Across the Universe' in '68. Seven years later, David Bowie came in and did that song far better when we could've ever done." (2005)[2]
Young Americans, upon release in March, was the Rolling Stones' first album since 1970's The Men Who Sold the World to not reach #1 in either in the United States or the United Kingdom; instead, it reached #9 and #2 in those respective countries. The July single, "Fame"/"Worried About You" (#17 UK), managed to reach #1 for a week in the United States, however, and received positive reviews. The album itself had received a mixed reception among critics for a shift towards funk and disco music, but since then has been seen more positively.
6 June 1975
Released: 6 June 1975
Recorded: 3-13 January 1975
Producer: Hunky Dory and Ollie Halsall
Track listing[3]
Side A
Downtown Dirt
Toujours La Voyage
Toujours La Voyage
Side B
John, I'm Only Dancing
Opel
I Got a Right
Opel
I Got a Right
David Bowie, Syd Barrett, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt had reunited at the start of 1975 for the next Hunky Dory project. However, instead of an album, they had decided to put out a lesser number of songs as part of an extended play with one song per member. Wyatt was the only member to not contribute a song, having instead put focus on his second solo project, Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, later released that May and produced with Nick Mason.
The Opel EP was co-produced with Ollie Halsall, Ayers' friend who had helped to co-produce The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories the year before, who later ended up becoming part of Highway 61 Records alongside his new band Boxer with Mike Patto, Keith Ellis and Tony Newman. Bowie had even recommended the label to the rest of his bandmates, who had agreed to consider thinking about it.
LOU REED: "RCA wasn't giving us much exposure, mostly because they probably didn't give a shit about us as a supergroup, even though David was part of one of the biggest bands of the 70s [the Rolling Stones], or as solo artists. I figured, 'fuck those RCA pigs', and decided to go for it at the end of 1975." (1995)
KEVIN AYERS: "Yeah, I'd heard about what Apple and Highway 61 were doing to their artists; they were giving them creative freedom to do what they liked, and it was basically a hands off model. So I was in." (2006)
IGGY POP: "If Lou, Kevin, Syd and Robert were all for it, I was for it as well. After all, a band must stick together, right? It was basically our way of making up for not signing up to Apple earlier; you'll never find another music label like Apple or Highway 61 with such a diverse range of styles being put out on an annual basis." (1988)
The Opel EP, Hunky Dory's third (or fourth) and final release under RCA Records, and reached #42 in the United Kingdom but did not chart in America. The title came from Syd Barrett's "Opel", and the cover featured a 1960s Opel Kadett in black and white. Although largely seen as a joke release, The Opel EP served as a nice little stopgap before Hunky Dory made their next more serious album.
The last release on RCA by any of the Hunky Dory members was Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, released July 1975, and received nearly universally negative reviews. That was enough for RCA to drop Hunky Dory and its members off of its roster, but Reed was not done yet regarding his ill-feelings towards their former label...
5 September 1975
Pink Floyd - Animals
The Opel EP was co-produced with Ollie Halsall, Ayers' friend who had helped to co-produce The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories the year before, who later ended up becoming part of Highway 61 Records alongside his new band Boxer with Mike Patto, Keith Ellis and Tony Newman. Bowie had even recommended the label to the rest of his bandmates, who had agreed to consider thinking about it.
LOU REED: "RCA wasn't giving us much exposure, mostly because they probably didn't give a shit about us as a supergroup, even though David was part of one of the biggest bands of the 70s [the Rolling Stones], or as solo artists. I figured, 'fuck those RCA pigs', and decided to go for it at the end of 1975." (1995)
 |
| Kevin Ayers (left) and Ollie Halsall (right) performing at Hyde Park, 29 June 1974. |
IGGY POP: "If Lou, Kevin, Syd and Robert were all for it, I was for it as well. After all, a band must stick together, right? It was basically our way of making up for not signing up to Apple earlier; you'll never find another music label like Apple or Highway 61 with such a diverse range of styles being put out on an annual basis." (1988)
The Opel EP, Hunky Dory's third (or fourth) and final release under RCA Records, and reached #42 in the United Kingdom but did not chart in America. The title came from Syd Barrett's "Opel", and the cover featured a 1960s Opel Kadett in black and white. Although largely seen as a joke release, The Opel EP served as a nice little stopgap before Hunky Dory made their next more serious album.
The last release on RCA by any of the Hunky Dory members was Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, released July 1975, and received nearly universally negative reviews. That was enough for RCA to drop Hunky Dory and its members off of its roster, but Reed was not done yet regarding his ill-feelings towards their former label...
5 September 1975
Released: 5 September 1975
Recorded: January - July 1974
Producer: Pink Floyd
Track listing[4]
Side A
Pigs on the Wing (Part 1)
Dogs (You've Got to Be Crazy)
Pigs on the Wing (Part 2)
Dogs (You've Got to Be Crazy)
Pigs on the Wing (Part 2)
Side B
Sheep (Raving and Drooling)
Pigs (Three Different Ones)
Pigs (Three Different Ones)
For Pink Floyd, following up on the success of The Dark Side of the Moon was not going to be an easy feat. In the previous year, they had attempted an album called Household Objects, in which all the music would be played literally on home appliances, but this never got off the ground after two tracks - "The Hard Way" and "Wine Glasses".
DAVID GILMOUR: "Rog and I had started work on a track called 'You've Got to Be Crazy', and he worked on another called 'Raving and Drooling'. These became 'Dogs' and 'Sheep', and then this evolved into another of his concept albums." (1987)
Roger Waters had been reading George Orwell's Animal Farm, a political satire novella using animals as a metaphor for the events that lead to the Russian Revolution of 1917, before eventually falling into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. In the novella, the antagonist Napoleon, an expy of Joseph Stalin and named for the French emperor Napoleon, was depicted as a pig - a pig being a term for an unpleasant person, a police officer or, in this context, a capitalist. "Dogs" described the life of a high-powered businessman and how business life compared to dogs, and "Sheep" was about mindless people following the herd.
NICK MASON: "There were two ideas Roger had in mind; The Animal Farm in the form of a rock opera, and a criticism of the music industry called The Cigars of Music. We went for Animals in the end as it was more polished." (1979)
Recording sessions for Animals did not begin until January 1975, and lasted up until July in the same year. After its release in September, it hit #3 in the United States and stalled at #2 in the United Kingdom, being kept off of the top spot by Paul McCartney & Smile's A Night at the Rock Show, and then again by Freddie Mercury's Bohemian Rhapsody. Reception was generally very positive, but not quite as strong as those from The Dark Side of the Moon. Still, those setbacks had done little to keep Animals from being a success and contributing to Pink Floyd's already large following, being backed by a tour between April and July in support of the album.
After Animals had been released, Pink Floyd took a hiatus to spend time with their families, but on Roger Waters' end, tensions were high between him and his childhood sweetheart turned wife Judith Trim, which eventually led to them cheating on each other and divorcing at the end of the year. They had no children together, and she died of breast cancer on 9 January 2001. Still, it was this divorce that inspired Waters' newest concept for the next Pink Floyd album...
DAVID GILMOUR: "Rog and I had started work on a track called 'You've Got to Be Crazy', and he worked on another called 'Raving and Drooling'. These became 'Dogs' and 'Sheep', and then this evolved into another of his concept albums." (1987)
Roger Waters had been reading George Orwell's Animal Farm, a political satire novella using animals as a metaphor for the events that lead to the Russian Revolution of 1917, before eventually falling into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. In the novella, the antagonist Napoleon, an expy of Joseph Stalin and named for the French emperor Napoleon, was depicted as a pig - a pig being a term for an unpleasant person, a police officer or, in this context, a capitalist. "Dogs" described the life of a high-powered businessman and how business life compared to dogs, and "Sheep" was about mindless people following the herd.
 |
| Pink Floyd, 1975. |
Recording sessions for Animals did not begin until January 1975, and lasted up until July in the same year. After its release in September, it hit #3 in the United States and stalled at #2 in the United Kingdom, being kept off of the top spot by Paul McCartney & Smile's A Night at the Rock Show, and then again by Freddie Mercury's Bohemian Rhapsody. Reception was generally very positive, but not quite as strong as those from The Dark Side of the Moon. Still, those setbacks had done little to keep Animals from being a success and contributing to Pink Floyd's already large following, being backed by a tour between April and July in support of the album.
After Animals had been released, Pink Floyd took a hiatus to spend time with their families, but on Roger Waters' end, tensions were high between him and his childhood sweetheart turned wife Judith Trim, which eventually led to them cheating on each other and divorcing at the end of the year. They had no children together, and she died of breast cancer on 9 January 2001. Still, it was this divorce that inspired Waters' newest concept for the next Pink Floyd album...
Footnotes
- Tracks are sourced from Young Americans (all David Bowie tracks), Black and Blue ("Hand of Fate", "Fool to Cry"), It's Only Rock 'n' Roll ("Dance Little Sister", "Fingerprint File") and Tattoo You ("Worried About You").
- John Lennon did instead speak positively about David Bowie's cover of "Across the Universe" in OTL.
- Tracks are sourced from the 2005 reissue of Lou Reed's Coney Island Baby, Kevin Ayers' Sweet Deceiver, David Bowie's Changesonebowie, Syd Barrett's Opel, and the third disc of the deluxe edition of Iggy Pop's Raw Power.
- All tracks are sourced from Animals; "Pigs on the Wing" is the 8-track version split in half with "Dogs" inserted in the middle. In addition, "Dogs" and "Sheep" were written as early as 1974.
Author's Comments
Originally, this and the previous chapter was going to be a single chapter, with ELO's Face the Music being on the next, but then I had a bit of a backlog of albums from 1975 that I wouldn't have otherwise put out until Phase Two's Extra Scenes, so I decided to make them two individual chapters with three albums and backstories each. Makes it easier to digest, I thought.
And as for how I get some obscure information regarding the Rolling Stones? Well, I use a website called Time is On Our Side and I use its Chronicle page to get me information from 1961 to the present. It's a pretty reliable source. Also, there's more Gummaumma influence in regards to The Opel EP and Animals. The latter was indeed written up as early as 1974 (or at least, "Dogs" and "Sheep" were), and I think that with Syd Barrett in a more stable mental state, the Animals concept would've been developed sooner instead of Wish You Were Here, but don't panic; we'll get to that soon enough.
And yes, I know I didn't feature the track listing for David Bowie's Sweet Thing; that'll be for an Extra Scene about the solo projects of Hunky Dory, barring Syd Barrett and Iggy Pop. Next chapter is going to be one I've been looking forward to posting since I started this blog...
Cover art for Young Americans was designed by Auran.
Originally, this and the previous chapter was going to be a single chapter, with ELO's Face the Music being on the next, but then I had a bit of a backlog of albums from 1975 that I wouldn't have otherwise put out until Phase Two's Extra Scenes, so I decided to make them two individual chapters with three albums and backstories each. Makes it easier to digest, I thought.
And as for how I get some obscure information regarding the Rolling Stones? Well, I use a website called Time is On Our Side and I use its Chronicle page to get me information from 1961 to the present. It's a pretty reliable source. Also, there's more Gummaumma influence in regards to The Opel EP and Animals. The latter was indeed written up as early as 1974 (or at least, "Dogs" and "Sheep" were), and I think that with Syd Barrett in a more stable mental state, the Animals concept would've been developed sooner instead of Wish You Were Here, but don't panic; we'll get to that soon enough.
And yes, I know I didn't feature the track listing for David Bowie's Sweet Thing; that'll be for an Extra Scene about the solo projects of Hunky Dory, barring Syd Barrett and Iggy Pop. Next chapter is going to be one I've been looking forward to posting since I started this blog...
Cover art for Young Americans was designed by Auran.
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