Second Album | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | September 1971 | |||
Studio | Island and Morgan, London | |||
Genre | Progressive rock, art rock | |||
Length | 42:15 | |||
Label | Warner Bros. | |||
Producer | Curved Air, Colin Caldwell | |||
Curved Air chronology | ||||
| ||||
Alternative cover | ||||
Second Album is the second studio album by English progressive rock band Curved Air, released in 1971. It reached No. 11 in the UK Charts on 9 October 1971, and "Back Street Luv" became a UK No. 4 chart hit on 7 August 1971. [1]
Both variations of the album cover include a rainbow, a reference to the album A Rainbow in Curved Air by Terry Riley, from which the band took their name. [2]
The content and arrangement of the material reflected a sharp division in the band which would lead to their break-up the following year; all the songs on side A were composed by Darryl Way (with some assistance from Ian Eyre) with lyrics by Sonja Kristina, while all those on side B were composed by Francis Monkman. [3] Francis Monkman explained: "Basically Darryl and I respect each other’s work, but we don't really see eye-to-eye on most things. And we never really got the co-writing thing together. I wanted to get my first 'epic' together, so it looks like a split forming (at the time of the "Second Album")." [4]
Unlike Curved Air's first album, Second Album was recorded when most of the songs were freshly written and had had little time to be developed over the course of touring. [5] An exception is "Young Mother", which in fact started as a song by Way, Monkman, and Pilkington-Miksa's pre-Curved Air band, Sisyphus. [4] Then titled "Young Mother in Style", it evolved into the form seen on Second Album in part through the addition of new lyrics by Sonja Kristina.
The electronics used on the album were provided by E.M.S. London, later the recording site for two tracks on Curved Air's third album, Phantasmagoria .
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [6] |
AllMusic's review of the CD reissue was largely negative, saying that the album lacks the innovation and originality of the band's other releases, replaced by "a crop of relatively straightforward but sonically flat rock songs". It notes that the album contains "Back Street Luv", which it says "isn't simply one of the band's own finest moments, it's also one of the crucial singles of the early 1970s." It further added that only "Piece of Mind" shows any of the classical influences the band was known for, and that, while "spine-tingling" in part, the song also contains features which are by modern standards "hopelessly old-fashioned", "obvious", and "hackneyed". The review suggests that poor sound quality following the transfer to CD may have contributed to the reviewer's less than favourable assessment of the album. [6] Further, this review does not necessarily reflect the views of fans, many of whom consider it to be on par with the albums bookending it.[ citation needed ]
Salad covered "Back Street Luv" on the 1996 Childline charity album.
Heavy Horses is the eleventh studio album by British progressive rock band Jethro Tull, released on 10 April 1978.
Stewart Armstrong Copeland is an American musician and composer. He is best known for his work as the drummer of the English rock band the Police from 1977 to 1986, and again from 2007 to 2008. Before playing with the Police, he played drums with English rock band Curved Air from 1975 to 1976. As a composer, his work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Men at Work (1990), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television shows The Equalizer (1985–1989), The Amanda Show (1999–2002), and Dead Like Me (2003–2004); and video games such as the Spyro series (1998–present) and Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (2001). He has also written various pieces of ballet, opera, and orchestral music.
Curved Air are an English progressive rock group formed in 1970 by musicians from mixed artistic backgrounds, including classical, folk and electronic sound. The resulting sound of the band is a mixture of progressive rock, folk rock, and fusion with classical elements. Curved Air released eight studio albums, the first three of which broke into the Top 20 in the UK Albums Chart, and had a hit single with "Back Street Luv" (1971) which reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart.
Fly to the Rainbow is the second studio album by the German hard rock band Scorpions. It was released on 1 November 1974 through RCA Records. This was the band's first release with guitarist Uli Jon Roth and bassist Francis Buchholz, and the only one to include drummer Jürgen Rosenthal.
Anthony Francis Keigwin Monkman was an English rock, classical and film score composer, and a founding member of both the progressive rock band Curved Air and the classical/rock fusion band Sky. He was the son of Kenneth Monkman, an authority on the writer Laurence Sterne and Vita née Duncombe Mann.
Sonja Kristina is an English singer and songwriter, best known for starring in the original London production of the seminal 1960s musical Hair, and for being the lead vocalist of the 1970s progressive rock band Curved Air.
"Evergreen" is the theme song from the 1976 film A Star Is Born. It was composed and performed by American singer, songwriter, actress and director Barbra Streisand with lyrics by Paul Williams, and arranged by Ian Freebairn-Smith. The song was released on the soundtrack album to A Star Is Born.
Richard Darryl Way is an English rock and classical musician who was a founding member of Curved Air and co-writer of their Progressive Rock seminal albums from 1970 to 1976. He is best known as a violinist although he also plays keyboards.
Phantasmagoria is the third studio album by Curved Air. Released in 1972, it reached No. 20 in the UK Charts and is notable for its early use of the EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer to process lead singer Sonja Kristina's voice on the second side. Unavailable for many years, the album was reissued on CD in April 2007.
Air Conditioning is the debut studio album by English progressive rock band Curved Air. It was released in November 1970 and reached number 8 in the UK albums chart in December 1970.
Curved Air – Live was the first official live album by the British progressive rock band Curved Air. It was recorded on the band's reunion tour in December 1974 and released in 1975. Though it failed to enter the charts, it made enough profit to pay off the tax bill which had compelled Curved Air to reunite, allowing Francis Monkman and Florian Pilkington-Miksa to again leave the group.
Air Cut is the fourth studio album by Curved Air and was recorded in 1973, following the departure of three of the band's founding members. Only Sonja Kristina and Mike Wedgwood remained in the band from their previous album and Air Cut took them in a more rock-oriented direction.
Midnight Wire is the fifth studio album by Curved Air and was recorded in 1975. It marked another line-up change in the band, with Darryl Way and Sonja Kristina recruiting new musicians after the end of the reunion tour marked by the Curved Air - Live album. Kristina's friend Norma Tager, who had helped design the costumes she wore on stage from Curved Air's reunion in 1974 to their breakup in 1976, contributed all the lyrics to the songs.
Airborne is the sixth studio album by Curved Air and was recorded in 1976. Like their last few releases, it was not a significant commercial success. After a follow-up non-album single, "Baby Please Don't Go" b/w "Broken Lady", the group disbanded. Drummer Stewart Copeland went on to form The Police, while violinist Darryl Way and lead singer Sonja Kristina both pursued solo careers. Bassist Tony Reeves and guitarist Mick Jacques both later became members of the semiprofessional band Big Chief.
Lovechild is a studio album credited to progressive rock band Curved Air, though only half the tracks are actually performed by the group. The album consists of previously unreleased demos overseen by Clifford Adams in the early 1970s: one by John O'Hara, two by Eddie Jobson, one by Kirby Gregory, and four by Curved Air. Vocalist Sonja Kristina explained the album's origin:
Now that album was total piracy. Those were demo tapes I made for Warner Brothers, who had suddenly realized that I was the only original member — that it wasn't really Curved Air as it had been before. So Clifford Davis presented the tapes to Warners[sic] who decided for various reasons that they weren't going to continue with the contract.
Live at the BBC is a compilation live album of the British progressive rock band Curved Air from sessions on:
Alive, 1990 is a recording from the Curved Air reunion concert 23 September 1990. The lineup reunited Sonja Kristina, Francis Monkman, Florian Pilkington-Miksa and Darryl Way, sixteen years after the last time all four of them played together.
Sky 2 is the second album by English/Australian instrumental progressive rock band Sky, released in 1980. Despite being a double album it reached number one in the British Album charts, and at the time was the fastest double album to receive platinum status in the UK, while the instrumental single "Toccata" peaked at 5 in the British Singles Chart. The album was released in the United States and Canada as Sky, becoming the group's first and highest-charting entry on the Billboard 200.
"Back Street Luv" is a song by British rock band Curved Air, written by band members Ian Eyre, Sonja Kristina and Darryl Way. It was included on the Second Album and released as a single in July 1971 by Warner Bros. Records. It reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart on 18 September. Warners also released it as a single in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Portugal. In 1975 a live version appeared on Curved Air – Live and was released as a single in the UK by Deram, but it failed to make any commercial impact.
North Star is the seventh studio album by Curved Air and was released on 17 March 2014. It was the first studio album of mostly new material since the band reformed in 2008, following 2008's Reborn, 2010's Retrospective and 2012's Live Atmosphere.
The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
(from III The Fire Sermon)