November 1st
album anniversaries

Four Top 20 hits open Going To A Go-Go: “The Tracks Of My Tears”, the title song, “Ooo Baby Baby” and “My Girl Has Gone”. It was the first album to credit the group as Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and it reached No. 8 on Billboard’s Top LPs and No. 1 on the R&B albums chart.

Robinson produced at Hitsville USA in Detroit, and six of the twelve tracks came from 1963 and 1964 sessions. Marv Tarplin, the group’s guitarist, wrote the opening chords of “The Tracks Of My Tears” as well as the opening riffs of the title song and “My Girl Has Gone”.

Rick Rubin produced most of Wildflowers with Tom Petty and Mike Campbell, in sessions at Sound City in Van Nuys and Ocean Way in Hollywood that stretched from July 1992 to April 1994. The record carries Petty’s name alone, with Steve Ferrone on drums alongside Campbell, Benmont Tench and Howie Epstein.

Petty had planned a 25-song double album; Warner’s Lenny Waronker had it trimmed to fifteen. What remained includes “You Don’t Know How It Feels”, which reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as “You Wreck Me”, “It’s Good To Be King” and the closing “Wake Up Time”.

Derrick Plourde, Lagwagon’s former drummer, died in March 2005, and every song on Resolve was written shortly afterwards. Joey Cape produced the album, which is dedicated to Plourde and was the last Lagwagon studio record with bassist Jesse Buglione.

“Automatic” went online in early October, and the full album streamed the day before Fat Wreck Chords released it. A December video for the opener, “Heartbreaking Music”, was made as a memorial to Plourde. The sequence ends with “Days Of New”, which hides the acoustic “The Chemist” after a stretch of silence.

Jeff Lynne played nearly every instrument on From Out Of Nowhere, recording at Bungalow Palace in Los Angeles and producing and mixing the album himself. It was the second record credited to Jeff Lynne’s ELO, the band’s first studio album in four years, and it went to No. 1 in the UK.

The title song was the first piece Lynne wrote for the project and became the lead single in late September. Richard Tandy returns for a piano solo on “One More Time”, his last appearance on an ELO album. Goldmine’s review picked out “All My Love” and “Goin’ Out On Me” among its highlights.

Written while its members lived on opposite coasts, Altogether was the first Turnover album made that way, and the band came to regard it as their most collaborative. They wrote the songs with producer Will Yip and recorded at Studio 4 near Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.

Ryan Smith mastered the album at Sterling Sound in New York. “Still In Motion” opens the record and received a video directed by Mason Mercer within a week of release, while “Parties”, “Ceramic Sky” and “Temporary Love” come later in the running order. Everything Is Noise described its dream pop aesthetic and light 1980s influence.

“Alone” opens Songs Of A Lost World and was issued as its lead single on the day the album was announced. Robert Smith asked for the record to come out the day after Halloween, ending a sixteen-year wait for new Cure material.

Most of the recording was done at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire during 2019, although work continued until 2022, with Smith and Paul Corkett producing. Smith wrote “I Can Never Say Goodbye” after his brother died, and “Endsong” closes the eight songs at more than ten minutes. The album gave the band their first UK number one since Wish.