November 4th
album anniversaries

“Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” was already out as a single when the Ramones began recording Rocket to Russia at Mediasound in Midtown Manhattan in August 1977. Tony Bongiovi and Tommy Ramone produced, with engineer Ed Stasium doing much of the production work.

“Rockaway Beach” followed as a single that November, and the record also finds room for Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Wanna Dance?” and the Trashmen’s “Surfin’ Bird”. It was the last album recorded by all four founding members, as Tommy left in 1978 to concentrate on production. It peaked at No. 49 on the Billboard 200.

Nineteen songs in under 40 minutes make up the first They Might Be Giants album, the second release on the young Bar/None label. It was recorded in New York between summer 1985 and August 1986, partly at Studio PASS after the studio had closed for the day, with Bill Krauss producing.

The guitar solo on “Absolutely Bill’s Mood” came from Eugene Chadbourne, who played it down the phone onto a studio answering machine. “Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head” became the band’s first commercial video, and “Don’t Let’s Start” followed as a single in 1987.

Richard D. James said he made this album entirely on a computer, without any other equipment, and that the music was newer than usual for him, written in the year before release. The drum programming takes fast breakbeats from jungle and drum and bass and sets them against string arrangements and ambient melodies.

His own voice appears, heavily processed; on “To Cure a Weakling Child” it is altered to sound like a child’s. “4” opens the record, and “Girl/Boy Song” arrives near its close. By 1997 it had sold more than 100,000 copies, Warp’s most successful release up to that point.

Mark Kozelek named Sun Kil Moon after the Korean boxer Sung-Kil Moon, and boxing runs through this album. “Salvador Sanchez”, “Pancho Villa” and the 14-minute “Duk Koo Kim” all take fighters’ names, while the opener, “Glenn Tipton”, is named after the Judas Priest guitarist.

Kozelek, founder of Red House Painters, wrote and produced the record, playing with former Red House Painters drummer Anthony Koutsos, Geoff Stanfield and Tim Mooney. “Carry Me Ohio” and “Lily and Parrots” were later used in the film Shopgirl. Pitchfork later placed “Carry Me Ohio” at No. 462 in its list of the top 500 songs of the 2000s.

A 20-minute set at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards in 2016 led to Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams being signed to Peterson’s Brownswood label. The pair had started playing together while rehearsing Williams’s music for a Boiler Room gig, and Black Focus was recorded at Quartermass Studios, with Malcolm Catto of the Heliocentrics engineering most of it.

Dayes plays drums and Williams, credited as Henry Wu, plays Rhodes piano and synth. Shabaka Hutchings adds saxophone and Mansur Brown guitar. The album reached No. 13 on the UK Jazz & Blues chart.

“Glimpse of Us” was released in June 2022, months before Smithereens, and it opens the album. Joji announced the record that August alongside “Yukon (Interlude)”, which he wrote and produced with Isaac Sleator, with a video directed by BRTHR.

The follow-up to Nectar runs to nine tracks and about 24 minutes, closing with “1am Freestyle”. “Die for You” went out as a single on release day, and the producer credits stretch from Connor McDonough to Justin Parker and Whethan. The album reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200.