Enjoy Life

Winter 2025 CDs

Great new sounds to wile away winter evenings, selected by Simon Evans

Ringo Starr - Look Up (Decca)

When the Beatles broke up Ringo was the former Fab whose career prospects looked less than wholesome. For a few years he confounded the sceptics with some great singles – It Don’t Come Easy, Back Off Boogaloo and Photograph – a highly regarded country-flavoured album, Beaucoups of Blues, and the monster hit LP Ringo, which briefly united the four Beatles although, sadly, not at the same time. Then came the almost inevitable dip followed by decades of touring with a series of good-time all-star bands and a couple of pleasant but inconsequential albums.

Which makes this new country-tinged release nothing short of a revelation. Aided by T Bone Burnett, who co-produced and co-wrote several of the tracks, and several Nashville stars, including Alison Krauss, Larkin Poe and Molly Tuttle, it’s the perfect showcase for Ringo’s lugubrious vocal style - gently melancholy songs wrapped in a luminous wash of pedal steel and 12-string guitars. It may also be the best solo album from an ex-Beatle in many a year. Who’d have thought it?

10cc - 20 Years: 1972-1992 (Demon)

Whereas the late Sixties saw rock and pop return to its roots, with the revival of country and folk and the rise of the singer-songwriter, the early Seventies were a reminder that pop could also be fun. These were the years of glam, of artifice, of dressing up, but also a time when producers held sway, employing all manner of studio trickery to season their three minute wonders.

10cc were unique in that they were not just accomplished musicians and songwriters, but also knew their way around a recording console, and employed these multitudinous gifts in the service of some of the most sophisticated, but also accessible, pop records of the Seventies.

This excellent box set gathers together all their albums from those glory years, as well as less regarded but no less interesting records from the Eighties and Nineties. There’s also a disc that hoovers up stray singles and B sides, the latter often being vehicles on which the band could give their creativity full bloom.

Of the albums the pick of them have to be The Original Soundtrack, featuring the group’s signature hit, I’m Not In Love, and How Dare You, on which their studio prowess is most evident, with all manner of gimmickry employed, but always in the service of such enduring hits as I’m Mandy Fly Me and Art for Arts Sake.

It’s a brilliant set and, such is the enduring power of these records that you’ll keep finding new treasures on every listen.

Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway: 50th Anniversary Edition (Rhino)

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, originally released in 1975, marked a key point in the development of Genesis, signposting their gradual move away from the progressive rock of the early albums towards the more pop-based records of the following decade.

The stark graphic design of the sleeve demonstrated in itself the stylistic shift from what had gone before; albums like Nursery Cryme and Selling England By The Pound had purveyed a quintessentially eccentric English mix of symphonic textures, folky interludes and lyrics steeped in the creepy surrealism of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, but this was something new, all hard edges and the starker more metallic sound that would characterise Peter Gabriel’s early solo albums. It’s no surprise that this was his swansong with the band.

This 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition provides a deep dive into the music and visual elements around the album, featuring a newly remastered version of the original double album and a live performance of The Lamb Lies Down recorded in January 1975. There are also select demos and outtakes, a lush coffee table-style book telling the story of The Lamb from the writing sessions right through to live performances, and a reproduction of the 1975 Tour Programme.

Supertramp - Live In Paris ‘79 (Eagle Rock)

In 1979 Supertramp were on top of the world. Their album, Breakfast In America, had topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, spinning off no less than four hit singles, and this came as no bigger surprise than to the band itself.

Supertramp had broken through in 1974 with their quirky album Crime Of The Century, a beguiling mixture of progressive rock and 10cc-infused pop that had provided a very welcome palate cleanser to the bland, corporate stodge that by then was clogging up the charts.

Its follow-up Crisis, What Crisis? had misfired but the group found its voice again with the charming Even In The Quietest Moments. Breakfast In America, however, took Supertramp to a whole new level, and although the gentle irony that was a characteristic of the band’s work might have appeared problematic to American audiences they lapped up the album, which sold more than four million copies in the United States alone.

Inevitably there was a massive tour to accompany the album and a live recording duly followed, Paris, a selection of tracks recorded at various concerts in the French capital. This, however, is the real deal, and features the complete set list from the tour. Inevitably it is heavy on Breakfast In America, but there also prize cuts from earlier albums, making it something of a snapshot of the band at the height of their game. Sadly, it was all downhill from here but the music endures, and on their day Supertramp were very good indeed, as this excellent set amply demonstrates.

Laura Nyro - Hear My Song: The Collection, 1966-1995 (Madfish)

Laura Nyro’s flame burned briefly but brightly and in the late Sixties, as the singer-songwriter movement gathered pace, she would become one of its most celebrated exponents, producing, while still in her teens and early 20s, such memorable, much-covered, songs as Stoned Soul Picnic, Stoney End and Wedding Bell Blues. This expansive box sets features all of her albums, including the extraordinary 1967 More Than A New Discovery, and 1971 covers collection Gonna Take A Miracle, recorded with Labelle. There’s also a fascinating disc of rarities and live recordings as well as Laura’s first ever demo tape.

After her initial burst of creativity Laura recorded just four albums between 1976 and her death in 1997, at the age of 49, but it’s that extraordinary run of LPs between 1967 and 1971 that are at the heart of her legacy. If ever there is an artist worthy of rediscovery it is Laura Nyro.

All available on CD, Spotify and other streaming services

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