“MGB-GT” by Richard Thompson

"MGB-GT" rides on Mirror Blue, Richard Thompson's eighth studio album, which reached the shops in 1994 after sitting on the shelf: it was recorded in January 1993 and held back while the top brass at Capitol Records changed over. Thompson wrote it and sings and plays guitar, with Jerry Scheff on bass and Pete Thomas on drums, and Mitchell Froom back in the producer's chair after Rumor and Sigh.

The album's sound became the talking point, with critics zeroing in on the production and the strange way the drums were treated. Thompson saw the record as taking the rock rhythm section apart, a radical, brave attempt to ask what each song really needed, down to whether it wanted a snare drum or a backbeat at all.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.