If S.F. Sorrow is the Pretty Things' Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and Yellow Submarine wrapped in one, then Parachute is their more succinct White Album and Abbey Road. It's not just a time line comparison. The Pretties made this fascinating LP in the same studio as the Fab Four, London's Abbey Road, with Beatles engineer Norman Smith ...
Carl Barat's reputation as the (slightly more) responsible Libertine continues with Waterloo to Anywhere, his first album with Dirty Pretty Things, which also features former Libs drummer Gary Powell and guitarist Anthony Rossamundo, who filled in for Pete Doherty on the Libertines' last few tours. The album plays like a cleaner, slightly more ...
Who could ever have thought, going back to the Pretty Things' first recording session in 1965 -- which started out so disastrously that their original producer quit in frustration -- that it would come to this? The Pretty Things' early history in the studio featured the band with its amps seemingly turned up to 11, but for much of S.F. Sorrow the ...
Come See Me: The Very Best of the Pretty Things is a lovingly packaged, mostly well-chosen collection of one of the best bands of the British Invasion that never quite managed to invade. Their lack of success in the States was certainly not due to a lack of great songs. The songs taken from the group's first three albums on Fontana bear this out. ...
Nuggets, Lenny Kaye's original 1972 compilation of garage and psych, loomed large in the record collectors consciousness, canonizing a portion of rock that was originally laughed off while setting the standard for reissues. Rhino's 1998 box set of the same name expanded the scope of that record, replicating most of the original while gloriously ...
It seems as if every British rock band of any note recorded at least a few sessions for the British Broadcasting Corporation in the 1960s, and the Pretty Things were nothing if not notable; they spent more than their fair share of time at the BBC's radio and television studios, and this jam-packed two-disc set offers up the lion's share of their ...
The Pretty Things' second album, Get the Picture (released December 1965), has not only been remastered from original session tapes so the group sounds like their amps are practically right in your lap, but it's also been expanded to 18 songs with the addition of tracks cut for singles and EP releases from the same sessions. That's enough to ...
A 22-track single CD seems a bit paltry given the scope of the title -- except, of course, that the 1969 cutoff date here puts the material from Harvest (a label started late that year and containing the lion's share of EMI psychedelia) out of reach. Of course, there are no Beatles tracks and, likewise, no Pink Floyd here, but we do get cuts by ...
The key to the success of the Pretty Things first studio recording in 19 years is that most of it sounds as if it were made during their mid-'60s heyday rather than at the time of their early '80s demise. It's downfall is overwrought, out-of-style songs like "Love Keeps Hanging On," which sounds like something the fictional band, Strange Fruit, ...
After a few years of outdoing the Rolling Stones at their own game, Messrs. May and Co., clearly affected by their love of swinging London nightlife and all that went with it, injected their primal R&B roots with added spice (as Mike Stax, "numero uno Los Pretty Things fan," points out in his excellent liner notes). "Can't Stand the Pain" (from ...
British Invasion: History of British Rock pretty much follows a loose chronological order, which makes the presence of two tracks the Beatles recorded with Tony Sheridan in the early '60s ("Ain't She Sweet," "My Bonnie") on this collection of mid-'60s hits a little disconcerting. They break the mood, but they don't really devalue the disc, since ...
Right down to the Roger Dean-designed sleeve, this five-CD box set overview of 1967-1976 progressive rock is as grandiose as the music itself, which is not necessarily an unconditional recommendation. But give the compilation points for diversity and thoughtful selection. The expected superstars (Yes, Genesis, ELP, Procol Harum) are usually ...
The last album recorded by the Pretty Things before Phil May left; within months of this recording, the band split for a few years. Even more than Silk Torpedo, Savage Eye seemed to have been cannily devised with an eye toward picking up FM airplay in the U.S. There were hard rock, glam rock, and AOR rock influences from David Bowie, Queen, John ...
Long out of print, Silk Torpedo provides an interesting glance into the glam era. Beginning with "Dream" -- a ghostly instrumental prelude that their friends in Led Zeppelin would later cop for "In the Evening" -- this album launches into "Joey," a superb combination of piano boogie, crashing drums, and melodramatic choruses draped in Hammond ...
The Pretty Things' debut LP was a legendary exercise in anarchy -- 30 minutes into the two days' worth of sessions, their original producer, Jack Baverstock (the head of the label, no less), walked out, and was eventually replaced by a slightly more sympathetic personality in the hopes of salvaging something from the efforts of the band, who, ...
Who would have thought it? Reunited after splitting in the mid-'70s, the Pretty Things return with a new wave album. It's not what anyone might have expected, but it's very far from a disaster. The stop-on-a-dime arrangements and natural power show them to be well-seasoned, and Phil May, with an extremely mannered voice, comes across as a taunting ...
A problem with bands that have been on the scene for over 40 years (count 'em) is that they can sometimes still write songs with titles like "The Beat Goes On" and "Buried Alive," as if those tropes hadn't lost their edge several decades ago. On the other hand, when a band has played together for four decades its members have often learned one of ...
Who could ever have thought, going back to the Pretty Things' first recording session in 1965 -- which started out so disastrously that their original producer quit in frustration -- that it would come to this? The Pretty Things' early history in the studio featured the band with its amps seemingly turned up to 11, but for much of S.F. Sorrow the ...
If there's a band that deserves a good compilation, it's the Pretty Things. Thankfully, Snapper has the rights to the band's entire catalog, and has done an excellent job of remastering individual albums. This best-of is derived from that remastered material and does the Pretty Things proud with an extensive and exhaustive trawl through the group ...
No amount of scrutiny can disguise the fact that this rock opera -- built around a short story by Phil May -- is ultimately a bit of a confusing effort. Although The Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow may have helped inspire Tommy, it is, simply, not nearly as good. That said, it came first, and has quite a few nifty ideas and production touches. The CD ...
The Pretty Things' debut LP was a legendary exercise in anarchy -- 30 minutes into the two days' worth of sessions, their original producer, Jack Baverstock (the head of the label, no less), walked out, and was eventually replaced by a slightly more sympathetic personality in the hopes of salvaging something from the efforts of the band, who, ...
Before the Pretty Things began dabbling with psychedelia in the late '60s, they were primarily a R&B-influenced rock band. The double-disc, 34-track The Rhythm & Blues Years collection compiles the work from that early era in the band's history. Featured songs include the group's biggest hit from the time, "Don't Bring Me Down," along with less ...
The Pretty Things' debut was one of the prime cuts of early British R&B, featuring such definitively raunchy exponents of the genre as "Roadrunner," "Big City," "Pretty Thing," and "Honey I Need." A couple of weak jams prevented the album from ranking as a true classic. The American version differed slightly from the U.K. version of the record, ...
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
![Get the Picture? [Enhanced]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/h36135k0x9d_t.jpg)
![Pretty Things [Bonus Video]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/f67227x0nxs_t.jpg)
![Bang Bang You're Dead [Single]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/i30509o78qj_t.jpg)
![S.F. Sorrow [S.F. Sorrow + Resurrection]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/g17049vlfau_t.jpg)
![S.F. Sorrow [German Bonus Tracks]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/f80599h3au9_t.jpg)
![The Pretty Things [UK]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/e44719ur7xh_t.jpg)
![The Pretty Things [German Bonus Tracks]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/f80771xbvry_t.jpg)
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide or All Movie Guide. © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide and All Movie Guide are registered Trademarks of All Media Guide, LLC.