High Fidelity
High Fidelity was an American publication covering both music, its creators, and the technology with which it was played and recorded.
67 articles
List of articles in the library
Profile and Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, November 1977
STEELY DAN has been insinuating their mordant, pop-noir sensibility into the American musical mainstream for over five years now, and from the outset they've smartly ...
Tom Waits: Swordfishtrombones (Island ILPS90095-1)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1984
BETWEEN HIS fall from grace at his old record company (due as much to executive shifts as poor sales) and his time-consuming involvement in the ...
Material: One Down (Elektra 60206)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, March 1983
CHARACTERIZING MATERIAL'S work as "new music" could be somewhat misleading, since synthetic pop proponents have recently begun to use the term in lieu of "new ...
The Commodores: 'Easy' like $60 Million
Profile and Interview by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, April 1980
TOMMY McCLARY, his white Adidas pressed up against the sound-booth glass, sits in an insulated cubicle adjoining the studio control room eliciting a succession of ...
Was (Not Was): Caught in an Elevator
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, April 1984
The assortment of artists on a Was (Not Was) album appears accidental. But it's not. Really. ...
New Edition: Candy Girl (Streetwise SWRL 3301)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, October 1983
NEW EDITION'S hit 'Candy Girl' is an uncanny re-creation of the early Jackson 5's pop-soul effervescence, down to the last vocal inflection. But it's not ...
LL Cool J: L.L. Cool J: Radio (Del Jam 8FC 40239. Distributed by Columbia.)
Review by RJ Smith, High Fidelity, February 1986
THIS IS A test. Entrepreneurs Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons recently inked a distribution deal with Columbia, heralding potentially the biggest commercial boost to underground ...
Prince: Rock 'N' Roll Feels The Fire
Report by John Morthland, High Fidelity, December 1985
The PMRC isn't only out to censor sex and violence. John Denver could be next. ...
Peech Boys: N.Y.C. Peech Boys: Life Is Something Special (Island 7 900941)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, February 1984
THERE ARE too many dance records that, like werewolves, lose their power in the glare of daylight. They may he frisky enough to get club ...
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1983
From the dark, jaded regions of Steely Dan emerges an intellectual with an album about innocence, by Sam Sutherland ...
Bonnie Raitt: Backbeat: Bonnie Raitt Lightens Up
Interview by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, June 1982
Her new album is straight-ahead rock & roll. Has the California air gone to her head? ...
John Lennon, Yoko Ono: John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Double Fantasy (Geffen GHS 2001)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, February 1981
John Lennon's Last ...
Etta James, Allen Toussaint: Jerry Wexler: Producer with a Fan's Passion
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, August 1978
ON A BLEAK, sunless afternoon, Jerry Wexler sits comfortably in the shadows of a recording studio control room, listening to the playback of a vocal ...
Review by RJ Smith, High Fidelity, May 1986
Silly Love Songs ...
Randy Newman: Backbeat: Randy Newman's Coming-Out Party
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, April 1983
Called a recluse and a bigot by some, Newman has more to say than most "confessional" singer/songwriters. ...
Paul McCartney: Pipes of Peace (Columbia QC 39149)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, February 1984
PAUL McCARTNEY just wants everyone to play nice. When he addresses any topic pertaining to the outside world, he takes on the wheedling tone of ...
Essay by RJ Smith, High Fidelity, July 1986
Country used to be a music of the dispossessed. If you look hard enough, you'll find it still is. ...
Warren Zevon: Backbeat: Warren Zevon
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, July 1980
Don't the sun look angry through the trees Don't the trees look like crucified thieves Don't you feel like desperados under the eaves ...
Stevie Ray Vaughan: Backbeat: Stevie Ray Vaughan
Interview by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, August 1983
His first album is just hitting the streets, but Vaughan and his blues guitar are already well-known among rock's elite. ...
David Byrne, Talking Heads: Backbeat: David Byrne
Interview by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, September 1983
Talking Heads leader Byrne is a songwriter, video producer, theater composer, artist, and a part-time member of the 20th century literati. And some people think ...
Prince: Controversy (Warner Bros. BSK 3601)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, January 1982
CONTROVERSY IS a presumptuous title for an album, but it's in keeping with Prince's tactics of provocation. Prince, in his early twenties, is a musician ...
Indeep: Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life (Sound of New York SNY 1201)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, September 1982
THE IDEA behind Indeep is that in matters sexual, women have all the leverage. "You'd be a fool for a kiss," Rose Marie Ramsey says ...
Emmylou Harris Buys Back the Farm
Interview by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, August 1980
A GIANT cement mixer blocks the road, halfway up the snaking cul-de-sac that ends at Emmylou Harris' rented ranch house. Nestled in a leveled out ...
The Band: Northern Lights — Southern Cross (Capitol ST 11440)
Review by Mike Jahn, High Fidelity, March 1976
THIS RECORDING is easily the Band's best since Music from Big Pink was issued in 1968. And since the latter may be considered one of ...
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, October 1982
The current quintet's long-awaited fifth album may be its last with Ms. Nicks ...
Amos Garrett: Go Cat Go (Flying Fish FF226)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, March 1981
LIKE RY Cooder, guitarist Amos Garrett has carved a solid niche for himself without resorting to the usual ploys associated with rock's guitar cult: Although ...
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, December 1977
AJA IS easily the best album released thus far this year. I hesitate to qualify that statement with words like "pop" or "rock," because these ...
Steely Dan: Recording Gaucho: Doctors, Lawyers, and Gremlins
Report and Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, February 1981
BEFORE THE multiple-platinum sales of Aja carried their music to a broad pop constituency, Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen had earned enviable, even ...
Marianne Faithfull: Broken English (Island ILPS 9570)
Review by Toby Goldstein, High Fidelity, March 1980
MARIANNE FAITHFULL cut her first record, 'As Tears Go By', fifteen years ago. She was seventeen and fresh out of pre-convent boarding school — a ...
Michael Jackson: Thriller (Epic QE 38112)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, March 1983
A Thriller with a Difference ...
Donald Fagen: The Nightfly (Warner Bros. 23696-1)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, December 1982
STEELY DAN fans, rejoice: You can remove your mourning bands, undrape the black crepe from your speakers, and bask in the savvy pop splendors of ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True (Columbia JC35037)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, December 1977
Elvis Costello: New Wave Rock Classicist ...
Womack and Womack: Womack & Womack: Love Wars (Elektra 60293)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, May 1984
THE MEN and women that Cecil and Linda Womack portray on Love Wars almost never want the same thing at the same time which makes ...
The Salsoul Orchestra: Salsoul Orchestra: Salsoul Hustlers (Salsoul SZS 5501. $6.98)
Review by Mike Jahn, High Fidelity, April 1976
MORE THAN forty performers participated in the creation of this album, which nominally contributes to the current salsa trend but which in this case is ...
Interview by Davitt Sigerson, High Fidelity, February 1984
What do Southside Johnny, David Bowie, and Diana Ross have in common? ...
Bruce Springsteen: The River (Columbia PC2 36854)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1981
Bruce Springsteen Is Worth Waiting For ...
Fleetwood Mac: Mirage (Warner Bros. 23607-1)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, October 1982
AFTER THE bold experimentation of Tusk, the seamless pop flow of the new Fleetwood Mac album sounds initially like a studied attempt to recycle the ...
Merle Haggard: Big City (Epic FE 37593)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, January 1982
THERE ISN'T much on Big City that's unfamiliar to the contemporary country milieu: yearning to break away from urban life and flee to "the middle ...
Automated Radio: The Future Is Upon Us
Report by Todd Everett, High Fidelity, September 1977
DOES YOUR favorite radio station sound better lately? Do the announcers sound more professional, the music brighter and more consistent? Or don't you pay enough ...
Television: Breaking Out of the Inner Circle
Interview by Toby Goldstein, High Fidelity, June 1978
DESPITE HEALTHY critical acclaim for its 1977 debut LP Marquee Moon, Television has yet to become a household word. Leader Tom Verlaine seems to further ...
Jessi Colter: Diamond in the Rough (Capitol ST 11543)
Review by Mike Jahn, High Fidelity, January 1977
JESSI COLTER is a country singer who apparently would like to be more than a country singer. As indicated by this new release, she desires ...
Review by RJ Smith, High Fidelity, March 1986
Great Expectations ...
George Jones: "I'm Never Gonna Sell Pop"
Interview by Nick Tosches, High Fidelity, May 1977
"I HAVE used strings," says George Jones in the same way that one would say "I have sinned." It is not penance, but regret. "I ...
Review by Mike Jahn, High Fidelity, February 1976
ROCK MUSIC, like basic black in fashion can hide a multitude of sins — such as poor lyrics. In rock that is played at any ...
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble: Texas Flood (Epic AL 38734)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, August 1983
STEVIE RAY Vaughan's guitar playing is designed to elicit gasps: Every cluster of notes is an invitation to amazement. This multiple-climax approach could easily prove ...
The Fat Boys: Fat Boys: Fat Boys (Sutra SUS 1015)
Review by RJ Smith, High Fidelity, 1985
HOW IGNOMINIOUS: Three ace rappers make a whole album of worth-it raps, and their names appear nowhere on the record. Truly, the Fat Boys are ...
Urban Cowboy: Country Music Stretches Its Legs
Report by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, August 1980
WHILE THE rock-crit establishment continues to ponder the future of new wave and the death of disco, U.S. music fans are quietly gravitating toward some ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Almost Blue (Columbia FC 37562)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1982
PITY THE POOR marketing people at CBS faced with explaining Elvis Costello's maverick path through modern rock. Between the eclectic classicism of his Taking Liberties ...
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run (Columbia PC 33795)
Review by Mike Jahn, High Fidelity, 1975
TO LISTEN to a Bruce Springsteen record is like walking down Forty Second Street on a hot July afternoon. It's unusual, it's colorful, it's a ...
Review by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, May 1984
XTC MAKES music that is deceptively complicated. The lyrics are literate and occasionally obscure, the rhythms jerk around, dissonant strains loop in and out of ...
Miles Davis: You're Under Arrest (Columbia FC 40023)
Review by Richard C. Walls, High Fidelity, July 1985
MILES'S LATEST is a very mixed bag, sounding, in fact, like excerpts from three different albums. On four cuts, the trumpeter is presented in a ...
Ultravox: Rage in Eden (Chrysalis CHR 1338)
Review by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, January 1982
LATELY, ULTRAVOX has been experiencing a new surge of popularity in Europe and America. Though lumped in with the "new romantic" movement spearheaded by fashion ...
Talking Heads: Speaking in Tongues (Sire 23883-1)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, September 1983
TALKING HEADS' first studio album since 1980's Remain in Light is quietly brilliant, reclaiming the more skeletal character of their earlier work without suggesting a ...
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, February 1981
Gaucho: Listen Again ...
Crazy Horse, Neil Young: Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Re-Ac-Tor (Reprise HS 2304)
Review by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, January 1982
THERE ARE two Neil Youngs: the wacked out rocker with the reckless, turbulent guitar that cuts to the bone with the steely force of a ...
Abba: Super Trouper (Atlantic SD 16023)
Review by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, February 1981
OF THE four things Sweden is most famous for — blondes, clogs, suicides and Abba — Abba is certainly the most curious. Curious because of ...
Paul Simon: Graceland (Warner Bros. 25447-4)
Review by Hank Bordowitz, High Fidelity, December 1986
SIMON SAYS, "JIVE!" ...
The Knack: Round Trip (Capitol ST 12168)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1982
THE KNACK'S last album not only drew critical catcalls for its attempt to plagiarize mid-'60s British pop but it failed to repeat the popular success ...
The Bangles: Bangles (Faulty FEP 1302 five-song EP)
Review by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, November 1983
BACK WHEN they were the Bangs, onstage at various clubs around L.A., the four girls in this bouncy, Sixties-influenced combo were being compared to that ...
John Hiatt: Riding with the King (Geffen GHS 4017)
Review by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, January 1984
A PARADE of rock critics have tagged John Hiatt "the American Elvis Costello." If that's the case, then Riding with the King is not only ...
Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie: Christine McVie: Egos Can Be Painless
Interview by Steven X Rea, High Fidelity, June 1984
Fleetwood Mac member and solo artist Christine McVie is confident when she says, "I'll leave the trailblazing to the teenagers." ...
Ornette Coleman: Roots & Branches
Interview by John Morthland, High Fidelity, October 1984
Ornette Coleman connects the dance music of the Forties and the Eighties. ...
Overview by John Morthland, High Fidelity, August 1987
The rehabilitation of the accordion: American pop's got a squeeze-box. ...
Boston's Return: More than a Followup?
Interview by Toby Goldstein, High Fidelity, October 1978
IN THE cramped basement of a small neat house in one of Boston's outermost suburbs, the leader of a six-million-dollar band is trying to finish ...
Foreigner: Unruffled by Platinum Pressure
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, July 1978
SPEAKING QUIETLY over the hum of a transoceanic phone connection. Foreigner's Mick Jones doesn't seem the least bit threatened by the musical and mercantile similarities ...
Bob Dylan: Infidels (Columbia 38819)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1984
DESPITE ITS arch title and a few lyric barbs that beg interpretation as renunciations of his Born-Again episode, Bob Dylan's new album is far from ...
Shaun Cassidy: More than Meets the Eye
Interview by Todd Everett, High Fidelity, May 1979
FOR A teenage idol, Shaun Cassidy is thinking deep thoughts these days. Some of them have to do with an identity crisis. Not his: Contrary ...
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