Quite a year.

One of the best albums ever.


And a double-dip of genius from John Cale:

(Release date, not recording date I assume?)

Roxy Music- Siren
Robert Wyatt- Ruth is Stranger..

Yeah release date.

Also it's better if you say a little something about each album. Or at least post an album cover.

One of the first things I noticed about this year when I was going through the list of what I own from '75 was how many artists were super productive releasing multiple good albums

There's the above Cale twofer.

Gilberto Gil released the excellent "Refazenda" and also his album of guitar duos with Jorge Ben "Gil e Jorge"

Curtis Mayfield released "There's No Place Like America Today" and teamed up with the Staple Singers on the Soundtrack to "Let's Do It Again"

Parliament & Funkadelic released at least 3 albums (maybe more, too lazy to double check) with "Mothership Connection" probably being the best of the bunch.

Neil Young put out "Tonight's the Night" & "Zuma"

Bob Dylan released "Blood on the Tracks" and finally officially released "The Basement Tapes"

Emmylou Harris put out "Elite Hotel" and "Pieces of Sky"

Richard Thompson put out a couple albums with "Pour Down Like Silver" probably being the best.

And Fela Kuti made them all look like slackers by putting out 7 albums in 1975.

All this made for a great year in music, still I probably prefer each of 1970-1974 over 1975.

I think it was an okay year, but not really a great year. Here is a standout to me, though:


Burning Spear - Marcus Garvey

This, to me, is one of the great reggae albums ever, right up there with Marley's best. The tunes and musicianship on this one are top notch.

Nice pick. Some good reggae in 1975, including one of my favorite dub records:


The Upsetters: Kung Fu Meets the Dragon

Also, my favorite hangover album of all time:


Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks

...and for Eno, personally I prefer his first all ambient release to Green World:


Brian Eno: Discreet Music

Love the George Duke era. His collab with Beefheart, Bongo Fury was pretty nice too.

and what the hell? The Jamaican version was a couple years earlier, but the US version, which was altered and pretty much a new album anyway with a different tracklist was released in 75, so yeah....Toots and the Maytals:


Toots and the Maytals: Funky Kingston

from Wiki..."In 1975, a revised version of the album was released in the United States. It kept only three tracks from the Jamaican album, substituting six taken from the follow-up In the Dark, adding in the 1969 "Pressure Drop" single which had been previously issued on album with The Harder They Come." So yeah, I consider 7 of 10 songs not originally on the release as a new album. Actually, I've never heard the original Jamaican release, something I should probably try to change.

There's a lot of obvious classics this year from Springsteen, Neil, Patti but there's a lot of good junk rock in '75 that I'd recommend as well.

Some of my favorites not yet mentioned:



















Larry Jon Wilson - New Beginnings (Great Soul infused Country Music)
Terry Callier - I Just Can't Help Myself
Willie Nelson - Red Headed Stranger
Nils Lofgren - S/T
Labi Siffre - Remember My Song
James Talley - Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money but we sure got a lot of love
Milton Wright - Friends & Buddies (RIYL: Stevie Wonder)
Guy Clark - Old No. 1
John Howard - Kid in a Big World
George Brigman -Jungle Rot (RIYL: early D. Jr)
Lyn Collins - Check Me out if You Don't Know Me by Now
The JB's - Hustle With Speed
Frankie Miller - The Rock
Betty Davis - Nasty Gal
Hirth Martinez - Hirth From Earth (alot of the guys from the band play on this)
Curtis Mayfield - There's No Place Like America Today
Tom Waits - Nighthawks at the Diner
Tony Bennett & Bill Evans - The Tony Bennett & Bill Evans Album
Terry Allen - Juarez
Pablo Moses - Revolutionary Dream
Caetano Veloso - Joia
Billy Parker's Fourth World - Freedom of Speech
Doug Carn - Adam's Apple
Gerson Conrad & Zeze Motta - S/T (Gerson Conrad was the lead guitarist of Secos & Molhados)
The Dictators - The Dictators Go Girl Crazy
Di Melo - S/T
Tim Maia - Racional V. 1 & V.2
Angel Canales - Sabor
Ronie & Central Do Brasil - S/T
Doug Hammond - Reflections in the Sea of Nurnen
Oneness of JuJu - African Rhythms
Gabor Szabo - Macho

Steeleye Span~ All Around My Hat- my favorite of the myriad band line-ups.

Waylon Jennings~ Dreaming My Dreams- between this and Red-Headed Stranger in the same year, I was doomed to twang forever. A legitimate monster record.

Leon Russell~ Will O' The Wisp- the 2 radio hits off this one probably went a long way toward helping Leon through some lean years coming.

Steely Dan~ Katy Lied- Despite the fact that Black Friday is on this album, and the sound quality is godawful, this is my favorite Dan album. Doctor Wu is still a frequent ear worm.

Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson~ First Minute Of A New Day- it's still Winter In America.
+1 on the Burning Spear, R. Thompson, Willie Nelson, and T. Waits. And Guy Clark, of course- an incredible debut album.

I love the '70s and '80s editions of these threads the most, probably because I feel like they are the years I know the least. I'm pretty well-versed in the '60s, and was a semi-grown up for the '90s and '00s, but there's a big hole in the middle where I haven't explored as deeply.

That said, here are some obvious ones I didn't see mentioned above:


David Bowie - Young Americans


Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti


Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

And I'll +1 some of the above obvious ones: Springsteen, Waits, Young, Smith, Dylan.

Scary that this pales in comparison to the four album run from 71 - 73, but Black Widow is great as is the sniping at the Osmonds in Dept of Youth




Bite me, 8:24 of Stranglehold is all sorts of awesome.


Album of the year.

i've heard basically nothing in this thread

I agree with this. I also prefer '77-'79 over 1975. And yet 1975 is still a great year.

A lot of favorites have been mentioned. The two Neil Young albums (especially Zuma), two Eno albums (much prefer AGW), both Dylan releases (especially Basement Tapes), the Caetano Veloso (one of my favorites of his), Tom Waits, Willie Nelson, Richard & Linda Thompson (Pour Down, don't know what else they put out this year), Led Zeppelin, and Bowie (Young Americans is somewhat underrated IMO).

Not my favorite Bobby Hutcherson or Steely Dan records but still good additions.

I'll add:

Patti Smith - Horses
Actually the only Patti Smith album that I've heard that I like, but I love it.


Harmonia - Deluxe
The second album by Harmonia which was sort of a Krautrock "supergroup" comprised of Michael Rother of Neu! and Moebius and Roedelius of Cluster. It's smooth and easy motorik grooving, aural honey much like the cover suggests.


Don Cherry - Brown Rice
Don Cherry playing deep-groove jazz fusion. Sort of like Herbie Hancock's Warner Bros. albums, maybe.

I've got nothing else to add but +1 on the Richard Thompson and Dictators among others

Nothing to add that hasn't been mentioned, but that a good looking group of albums there.

that Gord's Gold gets a bi-annual spin every spring and fall

Not sure if the bias against that the later-day stuff has created against this band has caused any of you to avoid listening to this one:

But, Jesus Christ what an album!
This is rock 'n roll.

Look up, look way up.

Nice.

Don't know how I missed that. But, let me restate: