Lost Albums

You often hear about Great Lost Albums, and often they're not that great, and not even that lost. I suppose music journalists and record companies have to find new ways to interest themselves, so every few months there's some reassessment or reissue which deserves a place far above the standards in the pantheon.

I can't even begin to remember all the lost classics I've sought out and been disappointed by. Equally, there are plenty of gems.

Now, bearing in mind the moniker means nothing really, I'm going to list a few albums which might have been either re-issued with some hoo-haa, might be in some household name's discography an retrospectively proclaimed to be greater than their more acclaimed work, or some little thing which was bobbling on for years with no one paying much attention and then suddenly everyone was talking about it.

I've been thinking about this because I've lately been listening to a couple of Van Morrison albums which have always been fairly well acclaimed but have been out of print for more than a decade and so only possible to get for a fair penny (I even tried to get them via Amazon only for my order to prove fruitless). Anyway, they've lately been re-issued, so I finally got to listen to them - St Dominic's Preview and Veedon Fleece - and you know what. they're flipping awesome, both deserving a place alongside, or at least near, Astral Weeks and Moondance.

When you've followed music magazines as closely as I have over the last two decades, it's quite rare to encounter what used to be the greatest joy - discovering the wonders of the past. Between the age of 15 and 30ish, my life was a relentless quest to track down every classic album, starting with Sgt Pepper's and Pet Sounds, all the way down. I've written before about my organised approach, scanning the lists, the Top 500s etc. I bought whatever my money would allow, so gradually put my library together. iTunes was, of course, initially, a boon, but eventually, I found more and more, there was still plenty that was new and exciting, but there wasn't that much that was old and exciting.

"Lost classics" were more and more duffers, and sometimes they were they same lost classics that had been rediscovered 10 years previously.

And, anyway, critical consensus is not bulletproof, but it's not bad. The most acclaimed albums quite often are the best albums.

None of these are really lost anymore. That's the point. Bear in mind I'm the last person who should be making this list as I tend to be profoundly unadventurous.

Here are some albums, with brief summary

St Dominic's Preview - Van Morrison - ACES
Veedon Fleece - Van Morrison - ACES
Pacific Ocean Blue - Dennis Wilson - PAH
Smile - Brian Wilson - SHOULDNA BOTHERED
On the Beach - Neil Young - NO CLUB TROPICANA
Another Side of Bob Dylan - NOT ANOTHER SIDE, THE SAME SIDE, BUT CONTAINS GREAT SONGS
Don't Stand Me Down - Dexys Midnight Runners - ALMOST TOO MUCH, BUT GREAT
No Other - Gene Clark NOT THE GREATEST BUT WORTH A LISTEN
Born To Be With You - Dion GREAT TITLE TRACK, NOT MUCH ELSE
It's So Hard to tell Who's Going To love you the Best - Karen Dalton GUESS YOU HAD TO BE THERE
Diamond Day - Just Another Diamond Day NICE
Songs for Beginners - Graham Nash BIG WINNER
L'Amour - Lewis PUZZLING
Bill Fay - Bill Fay SWEET
Loaded - Velvet Underground - GRRREEAT
Da Capo - Love NO, NOT A PATCH ON FOREVER CHANGES
Moby Grape - Moby Grape  DECENT
Odessey and Oracle MAGIC
Carl and the Passions/Sunflower/Holland/Surf's Up - The Beach Boys ESPECIALLY SUNFLOWER, PRETTY GREAT
Nico - The Marble Index MOT FOR ME
Paris 1919 - John Cale  NOT QUITE UP TO THE HYPE

Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head. I'll try adding to them. Nothing's lost now, as I said, it's just albums which had a bit of a retrospective attempt to elevate them and whether I agreed with that elevation.