Album: Pink Moon
Artist: Nick Drake
Born: Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire
Released: February 1972
Genre: Folk
Influenced: John Martyn, Everything But The Girl, Talk Talk, The Clientele, Bonnie Prince Billy
Nick Drake has this blog's rare, prestigious accolade of being alone in having all his multiple studio albums feature on the list. For me, it's the best run of three albums in music history. That said, there's nothing triumphant about Pink Moon; this is his rawest recording, both emotionally and musically. All the orchestral flourishes and instrumentation, such as Danny Thompson's double bass, have been stripped away to leave Drake alone on guitar, piano and vocals. This lack of adornment makes for Drake's shortest album, with some of the best tracks just 2mins long. Though he was battling hard with depression at this stage in his life, just two years before his death, this was not the case during the recording of Pink Moon. His singing is still astoundingly tender and beautiful, while the guitar playing is breathtaking. Having read that the album was recorded late at night, it now seems so obviously the case when I listen to it, with instrumentals like Horn having a pre-dawn feel about them. The album title and cover help to emphasise this fact, while the pink moon adds a sense of foreboding ("And none of you stand so tall / Pink moon gonna get you all").
As well as the haunting melody of the title track, many of the songs are dense with melancholy. His strange guitar tunings and unique finger-picking style are even more to the fore on this album. Road and Which Will are both highlights for me on side 1, while Things Behind The Sun and Parasite are two of the most affecting songs on side 2. On Parasite, you get a real sense of Drake's uneasiness in the world, how (in Hamlet's words) everything seemed so "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable" to him ("Falling so far on a silver spoon / Making the moon for fun"). His descent after the album's release, partly precipitated by his lack of recording success, was fairly rapid. Drake returned to the studio to record five more tracks in 1974, but his producer Joe Boyd was shocked at what bad shape he was in physically and emotionally. Listening to the album just now, and the slightly upbeat ending of From The Morning, I got that same feeling of sadness that someone so talented, whose singing and guitar playing was so pristine, never got the recognition he so richly deserved in his lifetime.
Nick Drake has this blog's rare, prestigious accolade of being alone in having all his multiple studio albums feature on the list. For me, it's the best run of three albums in music history. That said, there's nothing triumphant about Pink Moon; this is his rawest recording, both emotionally and musically. All the orchestral flourishes and instrumentation, such as Danny Thompson's double bass, have been stripped away to leave Drake alone on guitar, piano and vocals. This lack of adornment makes for Drake's shortest album, with some of the best tracks just 2mins long. Though he was battling hard with depression at this stage in his life, just two years before his death, this was not the case during the recording of Pink Moon. His singing is still astoundingly tender and beautiful, while the guitar playing is breathtaking. Having read that the album was recorded late at night, it now seems so obviously the case when I listen to it, with instrumentals like Horn having a pre-dawn feel about them. The album title and cover help to emphasise this fact, while the pink moon adds a sense of foreboding ("And none of you stand so tall / Pink moon gonna get you all").
As well as the haunting melody of the title track, many of the songs are dense with melancholy. His strange guitar tunings and unique finger-picking style are even more to the fore on this album. Road and Which Will are both highlights for me on side 1, while Things Behind The Sun and Parasite are two of the most affecting songs on side 2. On Parasite, you get a real sense of Drake's uneasiness in the world, how (in Hamlet's words) everything seemed so "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable" to him ("Falling so far on a silver spoon / Making the moon for fun"). His descent after the album's release, partly precipitated by his lack of recording success, was fairly rapid. Drake returned to the studio to record five more tracks in 1974, but his producer Joe Boyd was shocked at what bad shape he was in physically and emotionally. Listening to the album just now, and the slightly upbeat ending of From The Morning, I got that same feeling of sadness that someone so talented, whose singing and guitar playing was so pristine, never got the recognition he so richly deserved in his lifetime.
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