October 19th
album anniversaries

Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York hosted the March 1964 sessions for this debut, with Tom Wilson producing and Roy Halee engineering. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel recorded twelve songs, running from “You Can Tell the World” to the title track, with “Bleecker Street” and “Sparrow” along the way.

The record found few listeners at first, and the pair went separate ways, Simon to England and Garfunkel back to his studies at Columbia University. In June 1965 Wilson overdubbed electric guitar, bass and drums onto “The Sounds of Silence” without telling them, and the new version became a radio hit.

Prince Buster wrote and first recorded “One Step Beyond”, and Madness made it the opening track and title of their debut album. Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley produced the record in London in September 1979 at Eden Studios and T.W. Studios, their first album as a production team.

The album peaked at number two in the UK and spent 78 weeks on the chart. “The Prince”, issued as a single that August, appears on the first side, “My Girl” followed as a single in December, and the fifteen tracks also take in “Night Boat to Cairo” and “Bed and Breakfast”.

A contract fight came before Damn the Torpedoes. When MCA acquired ABC Records, Tom Petty argued that his deal could not be transferred without his consent, went as far as declaring bankruptcy, and settled by signing with Backstreet, an MCA subsidiary.

Jimmy Iovine produced the album with Petty at Sound City in Van Nuys and Cherokee Studios in Hollywood. “Refugee” opens it, followed by “Here Comes My Girl”, while “Don’t Do Me Like That” became the first single. The record climbed to number two on the Billboard 200, held off the top by Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

Country Hell, Tore Johansson’s studio beside Svaneholm Castle, was where The Cardigans recorded Gran Turismo in June 1998. Johansson was by then their long-time producer, and he oversaw these sessions too.

“My Favourite Game” arrived as a single in September and became a hit in many territories, with “Erase / Rewind” following in January 1999. The record opens with “Paralyzed” and ends with “Nil”. It went to number one in Sweden and number eight in the UK, with the US release following in November.

Daniel Dumile had recorded as Zev Love X in KMD before Operation: Doomsday introduced him as MF Doom. Fondle ’Em Records released his debut solo album, and Dumile produced every track himself.

Much of the production came together over about three weeks at DJ Stretch Armstrong’s apartment, on Akai MPC workstations borrowed from him. Skits such as “The Time We Faced Doom” thread through a sequence that includes “Doomsday”, “Rhymes Like Dimes” and “Hero v.s. Villain”. Three singles had already appeared on Fondle ’Em in 1997 and 1998.

Queen’s Live Aid set at Wembley on 13 July 1985 had previously appeared only on video. This soundtrack, produced by Brian May and Roger Taylor, brought five songs from that performance out in audio for the first time, among them “Radio Ga Ga” and “Hammer to Fall”.

Other unreleased recordings fill out the film’s companion, including “Fat Bottomed Girls” from the band’s 1979 Paris shows. Studio recordings such as “Somebody to Love” and “Killer Queen” sit beside them, after an opening 20th Century Fox fanfare.