Best Era of Hawkwind

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by bzfgt, Mar 16, 2018.

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  1. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler Thread Starter

    The general feel is the main difference, but it's not like it seems like a different band or anything. I find that what Hawkwind does for you it does on every album at least through WOTEOT...I'm not sure if I can express what it is, it kind of grabs your consciousness and wobbles it.
     
  2. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler Thread Starter

    I don't know that it's underrated, it seems to get cited as the best or near-best as much as anything else...maybe Warrior has an edge, but probably not much of one.
     
  3. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler Thread Starter

    Definitely it's the quality of the music, and Lemmy contributed a lot to that. I don't think it's a hindsight thing. After he left the next few albums were still very good but didn't have the same nuclear force...although in retrospect Rudolph seems to get dissed a bit and some feel it picked back up with Shaw. But it's a distinctly new era then, Calvert joins full time and writes and sings the majority of the songs, so there is a clear difference.
     
  4. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    cheers, just intrigued
     
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  5. Centralscrutinizer

    Centralscrutinizer Forum Resident

    I was thinking in general terms amongst music fans. I think it's one of the best albums by anybody.
     
  6. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler Thread Starter

    Oh well if we're talking general music fans, yeah...

    Levitation is an amazing album, I haven't thought about it for a few years until tonight, I listened to it twice tonight though...Huw Lloyd-Langton is amazing...
     
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  7. Sergius Wegmuller

    Sergius Wegmuller Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wiltshire
    Agreed, Levitation is excellent. Top three Hawkwind lp's for me:

    Quark, Strangeness and Charm
    Hall of the Mountain Grill
    Levitation
     
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  8. Veni Vidi Vici

    Veni Vidi Vici Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    Good question. I hardly ever listen to “Warrior” and I think it’s the weakest of their Lemmy period - now I think of it, for me, it’s their weakest album of the entire pre-eighties catalogue. It has very little Lemmy on it, but more than that, I think the writing is weak. Moorcock’s declaimed interludes are an embarrassment. And I write that as a big fan of Moorcock the author. His voice is utterly inappropriate for the mood and concept of the album - he sounds like a stuffy deputy head ordering schoolboys to take their hands out of their pockets. The first two tracks are keepers, and make it a must-have. Brock channeling Longfellow has to earn some kind of hat tip. Lemmy’s trademark leading bass makes its final appearance in the catalogue. From there it’s downhill almost all the way. The line up features two drummers but was this some kind of no-show job scam they had going on? There’s just no sonic evidence of two drummers being involved as far as I can hear. “Magnu” is not bad and seems to presage their more new wavey late-70s sound. I do like Simon’s violin, and not just on this track. But it’s repetitive without being hypnotic, as their best motorik always was, so ultimately fails. Everything else is filler, until we get to “Kings of Speed”. No evidence of any lyrical genius by Moorcock on this one, and the music sounds like a Quo out-take (albeit a half-decent one). It’s just not really Hawkwind. I hear a band in a creative crisis. Little wonder the following “Amazing Sounds” has a very different style and apart from a couple of noodley and tedious instrumentals, is a much stronger album, I feel.
     
  9. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler Thread Starter

    I agree about Moorcock's bits, but doubt I could agree less with the rest of it....

    Lemmy is on all of it except for "Opa-Loka," I think.
     
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  10. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    cheers, appreciate the overview. i may well just like the sound of it. i like different things for different reasons and may just need to dip my toe a little further into the catalog.
     
  11. Veni Vidi Vici

    Veni Vidi Vici Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    I think it often comes down to what you hear first. If “Warrior” was my introduction to the band I might well feel differently. I first heard “Silver Machine” and then “Space Ritual” so for me the style of those is the “real” Hawkwind. But I can understand someone who came to those later who just hears a cacophonous mess. Different strokes...
     
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  12. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler Thread Starter

    It should be said that a large portion of the fanbase considers this their best studio album. The highlights of it are at about the top of the heap for me..."Assault and Battery>Golden Void," "Opa-Loka" and "Magnu" above all...
     
    mark winstanley likes this.
  13. fairies

    fairies Forum Resident

    Location:
    Netherlands
    The first 6 albums have a beautyful box and the warior box [​IMG]
     
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  14. I agree that Moorcock’s poetry reading are the album’s weak point, but the good stuff here outweighs the bad considerably. Simon House is all over this album on keys and violin and that plus some strong songs is the magic ingredient. Not a weak “song” on this album, plus 4 stand-out classics including Assault and Battery, Golden Void, Magnu and Spiral Galaxy. Lemmy contributes some great bass on Magnu and Assault and Battery. For these reasons this is my favorite Hawkwind album -and I have ‘em all.
     
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  15. mooseman

    mooseman Forum Resident

    Far from a progressive fan, I'm more alternative and 70's punk and power pop. jazz, and funk.
     
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  16. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler Thread Starter

    This reminds me --Robert Calvert's "Widow Maker" with Lemmy and Brock (from Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters) really captures the Motörhead guitar sound; here it's Brock on guitar, but it seems to presage Fast Eddie's sound. Paul Rudolph is on the album, and he was in the Pink Fairies, as was Larry Wallis who was in the first iteration of Motörhead...that's the closest connection I can make to the guitar...Clarke replaced Wallis, Wallis replaced Rudoph, and Rudolph played on the same album as Brock, on which Brock sounded like Clarke before Clarke did.
     
  17. izgoblin

    izgoblin Forum Resident

    Not a good enough singer to interest me. I didn't care for Space Bandits at all when I first heard it but I don't really mind the stuff with her on it now. I have at least enjoyed some of the live stuff she's on.
     
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  18. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler Thread Starter

    Is Xenon Codex their most underrated album? It's pretty killer...
     
  19. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    I don't dislike any era but the Lemmy era was the best. Not just because of his presence in the band, I think the band peaked around then.
     
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  20. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler Thread Starter

    That seems to be the majority opinion (I voted that way too).

    Re: the Warrior on the Edge of Time debates, I've been revisiting lots of Hawkwind albums this past week, and every studio album from In Search of Space to WOTEOT has a good claim to be their best studio album. I think for consistent quality all the way through, Doremi Fasol Latido is probably the best of them all, though. And it can't really be said it doesn't hit as many peaks, so it's probably the best one...but at the same time, I can't help feeling a little extra awe when I listen to A&B/GV, Opa-Loka, and Magnu...they are a little smoother and proggier than the stuff on DFL, and that doesn't necessarily on paper give them an edge, but I think WOTEOT is still my favorite by a tiny margin. Not much separates those 4 albums, though.

    Again, I am a big fan of all the Calvert-led albums too, and I dig much after that also. I think a lot of us feel that way--the Lemmy era is best, but not by the margin indicated by the votes above.
     
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  21. AlmostHeavenWV

    AlmostHeavenWV The poster formerly known as AlmostHeavenWV

    Location:
    Lancaster UK
    Anything that has Hugh Lloyd-Langton playing on it.
     
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  22. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler Thread Starter

    I listened to Levitation a bunch of times over the weekend, and I think I've come to appreciate that one more than I ever have in the past, though I always liked it. "Motorway City" particularly blows me away, his soloing on that is so beautiful it does my head in. The last solo break he starts out kind of low and thrashy and then brings it up, then Brock jumps in with a really excellent Brock-type solo, if you know what I mean, and then HLL takes it home...breathtaking stuff.
     
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  23. mr.datsun

    mr.datsun Incompletist

    Location:
    London
    I have to vote pre-Lemmy because ISOS is still their greatest single album statement. And to vote 'Lemmy' is to deny that.

    There are great Lemmy-era songs like SM, PWs, M, BP and UG. Mainly singles. Sorry for the abbreviations but you'll all know what I mean.

    I don't like the Simon House period too much.
     
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  24. Centralscrutinizer

    Centralscrutinizer Forum Resident

    I've always thought of In Search of Space to Warrior as being a run of albums, Lemmy just being one of many in the revolving door of band member changes.

    The first album, Hawkwind, seems more like a precursor to the band starting off properly with In Search of Space. A bit like UFO (1+2) before Phenomenon.
     
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  25. It’s good, but the production keeps it from greatness.
     
    bzfgt likes this.
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