music January 2022 57 www.bahrainthismonth.com Verdict: Some incredible outtakes from the punk legends. What’s the story? The BBC Sessions is the fourth live album by American rock band Green Day. It consists of live recordings from four separate sessions for the BBC from 1994 to 2001 held at the Maida Vale Studios in London. Worth a listen? The first session dates from June 1994, just after the band released their seminal album Dookie. Here, the trio sound loud, precise, and slightly polite; it’s as if they’re still getting used to operating on a larger stage. By the time they held their second BBC Session in November 1996, nearly a year after the release of Insomniac, they sound rougher and wilder, particularly on the ‘Brain Stew/Jaded’ performance. That attitude carries over to the third session, given in February 1998, a few months after Nimrod hit the stores. The 1998 set finds Green Day honing their precision attack, then the last session, given in August 2001, nearly a year after the release of Warning, captures a group in the thick of rethinking their approach; they retain their power but sharpen their songwriting chops. Taken together, The BBC Sessions emphasises both the connective threads and creative evolution of Green Day during the first act of their career, which makes it a worthy historical document in addition to a first-rate live album. Alicia Keys Keys Going by title and release proximity, Keys seems set up to be pitched as a sequel to Alicia. Conversely, it’s another ball of wax. Make that conjoined balls of wax. Disc one is essentially a standard Alicia Keys LP, while the second disc is an album of remixes plus two more new songs. Keys testifies her faith and gives thanks, and through the rest of the first set sings to a lover in varying states of their relationship, often with words of devotion and pleas to make it through the not-so-good times. The latter half’s new songs are two of the album’s higher-profile collaborations: a tentative-sounding missed opportunity with Khalid and Lucky Daye, and an intoxicated duet with Swae Lee where Tyrone Davis’ coasting 1979 hit ‘In the Mood’ does most of the work. Neil Young Barn Barn is heavily informed by Neil Young’s new surroundings in the Rocky Mountains, a place where he restored an old barn with his wife Daryl Hannah. Naturally, the barn is also where he recorded Barn – a process documented by Hannah on an accompanying feature-length documentary. Alternately cutting and corny, Young’s songwriting feels impassioned to the point of diffusion: the songs aren’t so much crafted as delivered. Happily, the loose performances more than suit these ragged compositions, turning Barn into a snapshot of this moment in time: a bunch of old friends in isolation, finding solace and comfort in the noise they can still make. Radiohead Kid A Mnesia Three years after conquering the alternative rock world with the landmark OK Computer, Radiohead followed with one of the most anticipated albums of the era. 2000’s course-shifting Kid A was a jarring transformation: icy atmospherics, digitised beats, meandering soundscapes and enough gloom and anxiety to make their previous output almost cheerful in comparison. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the revelatory album, the quintet created the triple-threat Kid A Mnesia, which united Kid A, B-side compilation Amnesiac and a third disc of era-extras titled Kid Amnesiae. As a snapshot of this crucial turning point in the Radiohead discography, Kid A Mnesia presents a band taking its first steps into a thrilling new phase, one that would alter their trajectory and push them further into the unknown. Green Day The BBC Sessions
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