Harry Nilsson: Nilsson Schmilsson Vinyl LP

Why you'll love it

This EU-pressed stereo reissue brings back Nilsson's biggest album. "Without You" went to No. 1 in America and Britain and won him a Grammy, and "Coconut" reached No. 5 here in Canada.

This edition

Pressed in the EU
Stereo mix

About the album

Harry Nilsson spent the late 1960s as the songwriter's songwriter, the man The Beatles named as their favourite American act. In 1971 he flew to London with producer Richard Perry, set aside his usual baroque studio games and made a proper rock and roll record with a crack band of British session players. It turned him from a cult name into a radio fixture overnight.

The big one is "Without You," a Badfinger song Nilsson sang so hard it sounds like the roof might come off. "Gotta Get Up" opens with a jaunty piano sketch of growing up, "The Moonbeam Song" floats, and "Jump Into the Fire" stretches a pounding groove to near-delirium (Martin Scorsese later gave it a starring role in Goodfellas). "Coconut" is a one-chord novelty sung in three voices, with Herbie Flowers on bass and Jim Gordon on drums keeping the joke perfectly straight.

Quentin Tarantino ran "Coconut" over the end credits of Reservoir Dogs and Kermit the Frog covered it on The Muppet Show. Its medical advice, to be fair, remains no worse than anything you'll get from the staff here.

Also at Kops: more Harry Nilsson on vinyl · browse Singer-Songwriter