The Roches

The Roches (1979)


The official debut of The Roches as a trio, produced in "Audio Verite" by Robert Fripp. This is about as sterling a debut as one can have, widely celebrated as one of the best albums of the year by critics and remains Absolutely Indispensible. Phoebe Snow had a minor hit with her cover of "The Married Men," and The Colourfield later covered "Hammond Song."

TRACKS

01. We
02. Hammond Song
03. Mr. Sellack
04. Damned Old Dog
05. The Troubles
06. The Train
07. The Married Men
08. Runs in the Family
09. Quitting Time
10. Pretty and High

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Maggie & Terre Roche - Seductive Reasoning (1975)




TRACKS:

01. Underneath The Moon
02. Down The Dream
03. Wigglin' Man
04. West Virginia
05. If You Empty Out All Your Pockets You Could Not Make The Change
06. Telephone Bill
07. Malachy's
08. Burden Of Proof
09. The Mountain People
10. Jill Of All Trades

Quality - 192kbs from vinyl rip




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Keep On Doing (1982)



From Rolling Stone:
No new record by the Roches can bring the awesome surprise their debut did, but their third album is nearly as perfect. The first may have been prettier by conventional folk-music standards, but Keep On Doing is more ambitious, emphasizing some peculiar instrumentation–especially the coolly excited, pulsing guitar runs by Robert Fripp–that often gives it the feel of rock, although the record is lush with acoustic guitars.

Features their accapella arrangement of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus -- for three voices. Yes, it *is* that good.


TRACKS

01. The Hallelujah Chorus
02. Losing True
03. Steady with the Maestro
04. The Largest Elizabeth in the World
05. On the Road to Fairfax County
06. I Fell in Love
07. The Scorpion Lament
08. Want Not Want Not
09. Sex Is for Children
10. Keep on Doing What You Do/Jerks on the Loose

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Speak (1989)


From allmusic:
While just about every critic and fan has a favorite Roches album that was inexplicably ignored, most will probably agree that Speak was the one that really should have gone gold.... "Big Nuthin" and "Person With a Past" are two obvious hits, but there are plenty more; in fact, this album doesn't have a dud track from end to end.... Alas, like all Roches albums it was critically acclaimed but ignored by the public.


TRACKS

01. Speak
02. Big Nuthin'
03. Cloud Dancing
04. Everyone Is Good
05. In the World
06. I Love My Mom
07. Losing Our Job
08. Person with a Past
09. The Anti-Sex Backlash of the 80's
10. Easy
11. Nocturne
12. Merciful God
13. Broken Places
14. Feeling Is Mutual

Quality - 320 kbs




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A Dove (1992)



From Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide:
For a long time they seemed strangers in their own music, distracted by some purist superego whispering in their ears about acoustic guitars. Here their pop style hasn't changed that much--it's a little more eclectic, if anything. But it could almost be growing out of their three consanguineous voices; they sound as natural and gorgeous as the Comedian Harmonists, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, maybe even the Judds. So when the words don't kick in right off, just immerse in the sound until they do, because they will. Pained smiles replace nervous giggles not because they've lost their sense of humor, but because Suzzy has finally gotten sick of her own whimsy, because the '90s are even less fun than the '80s, because you can't live with them and you can't live without them, and because they thought following "You're the One" with "You're the Two" was feminist comedy enow. Grade: A


TRACKS

01. Ing
02. Troubled Love
03. A Dove
04. Somebody's Gonna Have to Be Me
05. Expecting Your Love
06. Answered Prayers
07. Too Tough Hide
08. Beautiful Love of God
09. You're the One
10. You're the Two
11. Maid of the Seas

Quality - 320 kbs




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Will You Be My Friend (1994)



From amazon:
The three Roche sisters, Maggie, Suzzy, and Terre, have made one of the most enduring kids' records in a long time that speaks as easily to kids as it does to parents. Will You Be My Friend? is packed with melodic and inventive ditties that touch on meaningful subjects ranging from doing the laundry and facing disappointment to befriending the friendless (told as a story about a toad and turtles).


TRACKS

01. Do the Boodanee
02. Disappointed
03. Will You Be My Friend?
04. Rover
05. Uncle Dave
06. The Laundry
07. Postcard
08. When Kids Are Mean
09. My New Bicycle
10. Here We Go
11. Little Bitty Betty
12. Lovey
13. Goodnight

Quality - 320 kbs




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Can We Go Home Now (1995)



From Entertainment Weekly:
The Roches, Maggie, Terre, and Suzzy, can do anything they want with their voices, but after breaking through to a new stylistic and emotional breadth in 1992's A Dove, they've retrenched a bit with Can We Go Home Now, overindulging in what, for them, is an old vice: cutesy, self-conscious quirkiness.[Yup, it's got some good stuff, but it's probably the most uneven album they produced.]


TRACKS

01. The Great Gaels
02. Move
03. You (Make My Life Come True)
04. Christlike
05. Home Away From Home
06. Can We Go Home Now
07. When You're Ready
08. I'm Someone Who Loves You
09. So
10. Holidays
11. My Winter Coat

Quality - 320 kbs




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The Collected Works of The Roches (2003)



I guess you can't call it a "Greatest Hits" album when you've never had one! But it's still a very fine collection, and an excellent introduction into their catalog.


TRACKS

01. Hammond Song
02. Mister Sellack
03. The Troubles
04. The Train
05. The Married Men (live)
06. One Season
07. Nurds
08. The Hallelujah Chorus
09. Losing True
10. Want Not Want Not
11. Keep on Doing What You Do/Jerks on the Loose
12. Love Radiates Around
13. Another World
14. Face Down at Folk City
15. Love to See You
16. Big Nuthin'
17. Everyone Is Good
18. Ing
19. A Dove

Quality - 320 kbs




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Moonswept (2007)



From PopMatters:
The three Roche sisters possess lovely voices and the ability to create stunning vocal harmonies that just take one’s breath away.... The vocals are the star on Moonswept. Individually, each of them sing beautifully, but it’s when they join together that the listener’s heart starts to pound excitedly. Unfortunately, the Roches wrote most of the 14 tracks here, and they are not very good. The songs are often cloying and offer less than insightful comments on aging, human relationships and other such granola fodder. However, there are three excellent tunes written by others. “Long Before”, by Suzzy’s daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche, suggests how ephemeral and important friendships can be. The Roches also cover two Paranoid Larry songs, “No Shoes” and “Jesus Shaves”, which contain lots of clever wordplay and provide the three singers with lots of opportunities to engage in demanding stop and start tempos and sing gloriously overtop of each other’s voices.

I'll just add this - the strength of any particular album by The Roches seems to depend on Maggie's songwriting. When she is on top of her songwriting game, the albums shine. And when she isn't--or, like here, not really present in a writerly capacity--then it's more hit or miss. But you can't go wrong with those voices and the marvelous sound they produce.


TRACKS

01. Us Little Kids
02. Only You Know How
03. No Shoes
04. Moonswept
05. Family of Bones
06. That Naughty Lady of Shady Lane
07. Long Before
08. Piggy Mask
09. Huh
10. Stop Performing
11. Gung Ho
12. Instead I Chose
13. September 11th at The Shambala Center
14. Jesus Shaves

Quality - 320 kbs




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Ephemera



I've included complete lyrics for all the uploaded cds (ok, yes, I forgot to include them in the original uploads--shoot me now!), and a complete list of all the available clips on You Tube. The Roches are at their best live, and there are a plethora of clips from their shows available (though, not, alas, the clip of them performing The Hallelujah Chorus on Saturday Night Live--which was the first time a musical group on SNL got a standing ovation). I've also included one-offs, a cover, and a sample (the one I couldn't find is Phoebe Snow's wonderful cover of "The Married Men").

Song list:

from SONGS FROM LIQUID DAYS (Philip Glass, 1986)
--Liquid Days, Part I
[written by Philip Glass/David Byrne]
all vocals by The Roches

--Forgetting
[written by Philip Glass/Laurie Anderson]
lead vocal by Linda Ronstadt
backing vocals by The Roches

From TIME AND LOVE: THE MUSIC OF LAURA NYRO (Various Artists,1997)

--The Roches - Wedding Bell Blues
from ENDLESS HIGHWAY: THE MUSIC OF THE BAND (Various Artists, 2007)

--The Roches - Acadian Driftwood
from BLEECKER STREET: GREENWICH VILLAGE IN THE 60'S (Various Artists, 1999)

--Maggie & Suzzy Roche - The Love's Still Growing
from VIRGINS AND PHILISTINES (The Colourfield, 1985)

--Cover of Hammond Song
from I MEGAPHONE (Imogen Heap, 1998)

--The song "Useless, which contains samples of the Roches performance
on "Songs from Liquid Days".

Quality - VBR [192-320 kbs]




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Why the long face (2004)



This new CD finds Suzzy & Maggie (2/3 of the legendary Roches) performing once again as a duo and is the "more personal" follow-up to their critically-acclaimed and successful previous recording "Zero Church." Where that CD took a more universal spiritual tack, "Why the Long Face" provides the same rich resonance by looking inward. Stunningly produced by Stewart Lerman & Suzzy Roche, it continues The Roches tradition of dodging cliché and pushing every envelope in sight. As one would expect, the harmonies and lyrics are as exquisite as they are thought-provoking and make manifest why these women are some of the finest writers and singers working today.


TrackList:

01. I Don’t Have You
02. Broken Places
03. Who Cares
04. The Warwick Flog
05. La Vie C’est La Vie
06. Don’t Be Afraid
07. One Season
08. Long Lonely Road To Nowhere
09. For Those Whose Work Is Invisible
10. Training Wheels
11. A Day In The Life Of A Tree




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Nurds (1980)



From allmusic:
In another part of the world in 1979, post-punk bands like the Slits and the Raincoats were making prickly, challenging music from a female perspective. Meanwhile, the Roches were working on their sophomore album, Nurds, a likewise prickly and challenging folk-pop album from a group whose ties to Paul Simon and the Greenwich Village folk scene probably cost them some of their potential underground following. Make no mistake, though -- Nurds is a downright arty album in places. It's impossible to listen to the title track without thinking of the Raincoats (assuming you're familiar with the Raincoats), and the lyrics throughout are alternately weird, amusing, and poetic. The harmonies are sweet one moment and dissonant the next, while the subject matter changes in an instant from chocolate to boat people, or to a bizarre in-joke about Suzzy Roche washing clothes at the laundromat [ndb: Suzzy used to absolutely *relish* singing this in concerts, and it was always a highlight when she did]. Nurds was a charting album in 1980, and kudos to the Roches for managing to sell this unusual and creative album to the masses.


TRACKS

01 - Nurds
02 - It's Bad for Me
03 - Louis
04 - Bobby's Song
05 - The Boat Family
06 - My Sick Mind
07 - The Death of Suzzy Roche
08 - Factory Girl
09 - One Season
10 - This Feminine Position

Quality - 320 kbs




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Another World (1985)

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From Robert Christgau:
"Love Radiates Around" has a once-in-a-lifetime melody and was written by a pal of theirs, but its blissful sentiments don't suit this depressing compromise of a "rock" record any better than it would one of their Robert Fripp jobs. Even turning out songs on deadline they're sardonic weirdos, and though the material could be stronger, the monkey wrench is the received irrelevancy of the synthbeats and guitar solos furnished by three strangely indistinguishable production teams. "Gimme a slice" is one thing, "with everything on it" another. B+


TRACKS

01 - Love Radiates Around
02 - Another World
03 - Come Softly To Me
04 - Missing
05 - Face Down At Folk City
06 - The Angry Angry Man
07 - Weeded Out
08 - Older Girls
09 - Love To See You
10 - Gimme A Slice

Quality - 320 kbs




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No Trespassing (1986)

[IMG]http://i44.*******.com/30u60dg.jpg[/IMG]

From Robert Christgau:
I'd like to blame this depressing reading of the marketplace on coproducer, cocomposer, synth player, and man Andy Bloch. But the possibility that they've been listening to Jane Siberry cannot be discounted. B-


TRACKS:

01 - No Trespassing
02 - Knifed
03 - That Won't Happen
04 - La Vie C'est la Vie

Quality - VBR [320/256 kbs]




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