|
Post by nathanalbright on Oct 15, 2021 4:21:47 GMT -5
Playlist: The Best Of Edwin McCain, by Edwin McCain
Seeing as we have just reviewed a five-song EP by Edwin McCain, how much more impressive is it to review a best-of compilation that has four times as many songs on a single disc? It should be noted, in looking at the list of songs included here, that this best-of collection focuses on Edwin McCain's four Atlantic albums, for the most part, and even among that section of the artist's overall work there are plenty of great songs left out from albums like Misguided Roses ("The Rhythm Of Life," "Darwin's Children," "Grind Me In The Gears," and "The Holy City" are not included), Messenger ("Ghosts Of Jackson Square," "See Of This Mountain"), and Far From Over ("Letter To My Mother," "Kentucky") among them, are not included despite the large amount of songs on this collection. Still, this album gives the listener a pretty fair understanding of the appeal of Edwin McCain.
The songs in this collection demonstrate a striking degree of range in terms of subject matter and style, far more than one would expect from a meat and potatoes wigwag like Edwin McCain. The album is bookended by two versions of I'll Be, the second an acoustic version that appeared on Messenger. In between is a mixture of minor hits ("I Could Not Ask For More," "Solitude"), should-have-been hit singles ("Sorry To A Friend," "What Matters," "Go Be Young," "Hearts Fall," "Write Me A Song," and "I Don't Know How I Got By") and plenty of deserving album tracks as well ("Beautiful Life," "3 AM," "The Promise Of You," "Cleveland Park" among them). Not every song here is equally entertaining, as at times the music supporting Edwin McCain's songs, especially the material from Honor Among Thieves, can be a bit of somewhat basic and boring strumming. Most of the time, though, supporting instruments including some inspired saxophone and electric guitar playing add a great deal of warmth to the songs and McCain's mixture of romantic devotion and thoughtful introspection encourages the listener to be in a similarly charitable mood.
Whether or not you like this album will depend on whether McCain's musical and lyrical range is in line with the listeners own tastes. McCain's basic approach is to strum an acoustic guitar and sing about the lives and loves of common people like himself. He shows broad human sympathies, with fellow musicians (even in "Radio Star," where he constructs a cynical anti-Edwin McCain persona to muse on the ephemeral nature of popularity), with single mothers, with privileged college students, with the homeless, with drug addicts, with the young and with the old. He manages to blend genre effectively, ranging from gospel (the haunting "Promise Of You") to soaring romantic ballads ("I'll Be," "I Could Not Ask For More," "Hearts Fall," among them), to solid Southern pop-rock ("Beautiful Life," "Pop Star," "Cleveland Park"), as well as his acoustic numbers. If thoughtful introspection, a charitable compassion on others, and a strong interest in encouraging the broken in their efforts at redemption and recovery are your cup of tea, Edwin McCain is an artist you will likely appreciate, and if this album is far from the last word on the artist's career, like 500 lawyers at the bottom of the sea it is a good start.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Oct 15, 2021 10:58:01 GMT -5
At The Movies, by Kenny Loggins
While I was watching a video on YouTube I heard about a new album by Kenny Loggins that had been released on vinyl, and although I do not have a record player at this time, it was available as a playlist on Spotify so I listened to it while dealing with a night where the pain in my leg woke me up. This particular mini-album of nine songs is a testament to the fact that an important part of Kenny Loggins' career as a pop musician in the 1980's (and beyond) has depended on his involvement in popular soundtracks. Soundtrack pop is, I think, a particularly underappreciated genre of music, something I have written about at some length, and this album does the genre service by drawing attention to the importance of movies to Loggins' body of work.
This mini-album consists of 9 songs, and there are a few things that can be said about this diverse selection of songs. One of the songs is a new remix of Playing With The Boys with an artist called Butterfly Boucher that reframes the song as an enjoyment of time spent with both boys and girls, according to the contemporary meta. The original is also included here, an album track from Top Gun. Most of the songs in here are hits, and most were from the 80's heyday of the artist, other than "For The First Time" from the 1990's. Some of the hits have endured well, like "I'm Alright," "Footloose," and "Danger Zone." Others remain obscure, like "I'm Free (Heaven Helps The Man)," and "Nobody's Fool," even if they were hits at the time.
What all of these songs have in common, though, is the way that they demonstrate the skill and versatility of Kenny Loggins as a soundtrack artist. His ability to perform songs that could chart well and promote the movie while at the same time serving the interests of the plot itself through thematic elements was remarkable and it is not surprising that he was so much in demand for soundtracks for more than a decade. Hopefully this album, at least within the community that pays attention to such a release, can do for soundtrack pop what these songs did for Kenny Loggins' reputation as a hitmaker.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Oct 22, 2021 0:15:23 GMT -5
How Can You Mend A Broken Heart, by the Bee Gees
If I may be permitted to quibble, this particular soundtrack for a 2020 documentary of the Bee Gees focuses (perhaps understandably) on the first and particularly the second acts of the Bee Gees' immensely accomplished and prolific career. The fact that as a patron saint of unpopular causes I tend to prefer the post-disco career of the Bee Gees because it is the only era of theirs I actually remember cheering on in person means that this soundtrack does not fit my tastes. Yet I don't think this soundtrack was made for someone like me, and even as someone like me who prefers the more obscure and neglected part of the group's body of work, there is really nothing to fault here. Those who were fans of the Bee Gees during their initial period of popularity from the mid 60's to mid 70's will find much to enjoy here, even if they might want to hear more obscure album tracks from those years. Obviously, those who are most fond of the Bee Gees' songs during their heyday will find the most to appreciate here, and those who like the post-disco career of the Bee Gees will find the least according to their tastes.
It must be candidly admitted, though, that this album is enjoyable to listen to at 25 songs. In fact, I am strongly convinced that just about any twenty-five songs from the Bee Gees would be enjoyable to listen to. If I was trying to come up with a sensible and balanced retrospective of the career of the group I would certainly pick a different set of songs than this album has--I would certainly be far closer to The Record than this album in terms of my setlist than this album, but this album provides 25 songs from the Bee Gees, and some of them are somewhat obscure and underappreciated, and that is more than enough to make this a worthwhile collection, in the sense that any collection of songs by the Bee Gees is going to be a good one.
So, which 25 songs of the many Bee Gees compositions does one find here? The album begins with "Staying Alive" and then moves on to a selection of hits from the first part of the Bee Gees' career ("How Can You Mend A Broken Heart," "Spicks And Specks," "New York Mining Disaster 1941," "To Love Somebody," "I Started A Joke," "Massachusetts," and "I've Gotta Get A Message To You"). Nothing can be faulted about these choices. Most of the rest of the tracklist consists of songs from the 1975-1979 peak popularity of the group ("Wind Of Change," "Jive Talkin'," "Nights On Broadway," "Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)," "You Should Be Dancing (Full Version)," "Love So Right," "Children Of The World," "Night Fever," "More Than A Woman," "How Deep Is Your Love," "Tragedy," "Too Much Heaven," and "Love You Inside Out"). Even if some of these songs are a bit overplayed, these are all great songs too. The album then closes with exactly one song from the post-disco Bee Gees, the gorgeous "For Whom The Bell Tolls" from Size Isn't Everything, and then some more tracks from the earlier periods of the Bee Gees in "Holiday," "Run To Me," and the aching "Words." As might be well-imagined, these are 25 solid tracks for a worthwhile retrospective.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Oct 22, 2021 0:20:33 GMT -5
Just A Notion, by ABBA
The third song to be released as an advance single of the upcoming ABBA album, this song is an upbeat and cheerful song that fits clearly within ABBA's body of work as a whole. The song itself reflects the desire for intimacy between the narrator and her romantic interest as "just a notion" that comes from feelings that may be mistaken, for all of the faith of the narrator. The tension between the honest admission that such warmth is a notion and is not necessarily reality and the confidence that the singer has in her feelings fits the sort of tension that we often find in our lives, and those looking for classic ABBA here will find much to enjoy and appreciate in this upbeat but pleasingly emotionally complex tune.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Oct 22, 2021 19:46:53 GMT -5
Jesus Wept, by PM Dawn
This is the album where PM Dawn's audience as far as albums are concerned checked out on them. Although their fourth and final studio album, Dearest Christian.... would (like this album) spawn a moderate hit, the last two albums of PM Dawn would not find much interest from mainstream audiences. It is admittedly puzzling why this album was so unsuccessful and why it remains so obscure to the point where only two songs on the album have been streamed more than 100,000 times (a rather pitifully low number for an album by a classic R&B/hip hop group from the early 1990's). This is by no means a bad album. In fact, it is a very good album, albeit a very good album of a particular type, and that is a melancholy and reflective album that is best suited for a cloudy and melancholy day. Few acts have sounded as miserable and unhappy to be in the mainstream as PM Dawn did, and few acts have placed their melancholy in the same sort of beautiful arrangements that this album has either. An album of gnostic spirituality, this album comes off as a cry for help that, sadly, no one heard.
In terms of its contents, this album is about an hour in length, and despite having two short tracks (an intro that influences the album's spiritual and melancholy musings as well as a short 20-second instrumental interlude called Silence), the average song on this album clocks in at just over 4 minutes apiece. Both of the most accessible songs on the album, second track "Downtown Venus" and penultimate track "Sometimes I Miss You So Much," were released as singles, but there are other standout tracks to be found here, such as the aching "I'll Be Waiting For You," the spiritual "A Lifetime," and the gorgeous "The 9:45 Wake-Up Dream." A lot of the songs on the album reflect a tension of love ("Why God Loves You"), isolation ("Miles From Anything"), emotional turmoil ("My Own Personal Gravity," "Forever Damaged (The 96th)," "Apathy Superstar!?") as well as spiritual questing ("Sonchynne") that demonstrates the band was in a crisis sort of period in this album.
No one, apparently, in the mid-90's wanted to pay attention to this crisis, though. And it is hard to tell what the crisis involved. The lyrics of the album are a mix of musings about God, about romantic love and the ways in which love for God and love for women can be dangerously intertwined in the act's thinking and feeling, and the album closer "Fantasia's Confidential Ghetto" ends with a cover of "Lime And Coconut" that hints that maybe even physical indigestion from the bad diet of a life of fame may account for a substantial part of the act's misery during this period. That is the problem with a gnostic spirituality, in that the changeable moods of a deceptive heart can signal one to be doubtful about one's place of security (or insecurity) with God, who is not subject to such mood swings as we are. Ultimately, the group's lack of a firm spiritual founding led their lack of satisfaction with fame and its trappings into a spiritual crisis that filled the back half of their discography with albums that many people did not take the time to listen to, much less attempt to understand. And that is a great shame.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Oct 26, 2021 0:20:43 GMT -5
You Can't Stop The Bum Rush, by Len
If you are familiar with obscure 90's pop music like I am, you likely remember one of the classic one-hit wonders of the end of the decade, Len, who are remembered for their quirky but lovely song "Steal My Sunshine." Almost no one knows any of their other songs, but they did have a full album that their hit single was included on, and one of the music channels I listen to recommended that I take a listen to the album because it was a lot more diverse than expected. This is a challenge I took to heart, and so I decided to listen to the album--it comes in at an efficient 44 minutes for 12 songs, not a long listen at all, and I have to agree that diverse is certainly the most obvious thing that can be said about the sound of Len on this album, and while this is as very good thing for me as a listener, it may not have been a good thing for their career.
The album begins, understandably enough, with the enjoyable "Steal My Sunshine," a classic piece of late 90's pop that holds up very well more than two decades later. It is what is after this single that makes this album so striking and diverse. Second track "Cryptik Souls Crew," is full of hip-hop, something that continues throughout the album, serving as a hype track to introduce the group as a whole. "Man Of The Year," then continues with some old school hip hop elements while also adding some dance pop to the mix. "Beautiful Day," contains some excellent lines by Biz Markie while also continuing the hip hop trend. Then "The Hard Disk Approach" adds what I can only describe as a Kraftwerkesque dance pop lyric. "Hot Rod Monster Jam" switches to rap-rock approach with more record scratches, rap verses, and spoken word sections and then an old-fashioned outro. "Cold Chillin'" offers an example of party pop-rap with multiple rappers as well as an enjoyable hook. "Feelin' Alright" then expresses a complex feeling of ennui and frustration in a rock track with a fuzzy guitar solo. "Cheeky Bugger" is a short and odd pop rock song about dealing with anger and frustration. "Big Meanie" is an insult track to a titular big meanie that has gorgeous pop instrumentation that sounds like it could have come from a Jem album. "June Bug" then follows this with a jazzy song from the group's female lead singer that is surprisingly reflective and also gorgeous. "Crazy Cause I Believe" (Early Morning Sunshine)" then turns into a rousing soul number about staying true to oneself and overcoming the difficult times, returning to the themes of sunshine that the album began with.
One of the more interesting aspects of this album is the way that odd and striking outros serve as a unifying theme in an otherwise extremely diverse album. Quite a few of the songs also include tracks that include enthusiastic crowd noise to give this album a "live" feel and indicate the enthusiasm of a devoted concert audience. This is an album that shows Len to be a very diverse group, with plenty of hip hop, pop, rap, jazz, soul, and dance elements all mixed together. Despite these diverse musical elements, the album as a whole has a strong tenor of seeking to rise above life's troubles and frustrations, as these appear over and over again throughout the songs, dealt with in a variety of different ways, with a high degree of competence and energy and personality. This is a quirky album, and an album that a music label would likely be at a loss to promote. This song feels like it should have had more hits, but it did not, remaining an obscure gem that rewards the listener who comes to this with a wide enjoyment of multiple genres.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Oct 26, 2021 19:23:30 GMT -5
E.S.P., by the Bee Gees
Continuing my tour of the Bee Gees discography going roughly backwards in time from the post-disco comeback period of the group, it is time to look at their first post-disco comeback album in E.S.P. This album was not a particularly successful album, but it did have a big hit in "You Win Again," a dark love song whose striking percussion established the Bee Gees as a group that others wanted to sample because of their musical excellence even if none of these songs were hits in the United States. So, how does this album hold up overall? Let us take a look at this relatively short and obscure album and see if it deserves to be better known.
The album begins with the title track, which views love as the solution to problems of communication, a driving and beautiful song that starts the album on a high note. After that comes "You Win Again" another song that looks at the problems and difficulties of love and relationships, which appears far more upbeat than it is once its lyrics are understood. "Live Or Die (Hold Me Like A Child)" is a lovely synth pop ballad about love and devotion that could only have come out of the 80's. "Giving Up The Ghost" then follows with a beautiful and rousing example of 80's dance pop. "The Longest Night" is a song about loneliness and devotion that is beautiful and touching. "This Is Your Life" is an attempt to examine the life of the Bee Gees with upbeat 80's industrial instrumentation that reflects on the Bee Gees' previous period of music in a driving outro. "Angela" then returns to a beautiful power ballad about the reflection on a past relationship. "Overnight" then contains a midtempo attempt on the part of the narrator to stay overnight with someone through charm and seduction. "Crazy For Your Love" is a surprisingly touching and lighthearted song about the narrator's love. "Backtafunk" then provides an example of 80's funk devoted to the Bee Gees' amorous efforts. The album then closes then with a vocal reprise of the opening track to bring everything back full circle.
As someone who is generally fond of the music of the Bee Gees, this album is definitely a worthwhile find. If you enjoy the vocal harmonies of the Bee Gees set to 80's pop, dance, and funk instrumentation, this is an album you will enjoy a great deal. At least a few of the songs on this album, like "E.S.P.," "You Win Again," "Giving Up The Ghost," "The Longest Night," "Angela," and "Crazy For Your Love" all deserve to be much better known and remembered, and the album as a whole demonstrates that the Bee Gees made compelling music after their commercial peak that do not deserve to be forgotten the way that so much of it has. If you don't like 80's production, though, this album is probably not going to be as enjoyable to you as it is to me, though.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Oct 29, 2021 15:38:52 GMT -5
Begin Again, by Norah Jones
Norah Jones is an artist who, like many, I am familiar with from her tasteful and catchy and lovely singles and not really from an album perspective. I watched an interview that talked a fair bit about this mini-album, though, her most recent work, and I thought it would be worthwhile to listen to it and review it (not least because it is a short work at only seven songs and less than half an hour in length) and then see if I wanted to add Norah Jones to my various discography projects. With that context, therefore, let us look at this short album as a whole, which was recorded in three different periods between 2018 and 2019.
The album beings with "My Heart Is Full," a soulful drone of a song with tasteful instrumentals. If this is not the sort of song one expects to hear on the radio, it certainly is an enjoyable if somewhat repetitive song to hear on one's own. The title track, "Begin Again," has a soulful vibe and jazzy instrumentals as the narrator expresses the path of a broken relationship that has the chance to begin again and wonders how something can be brought to life again, with a lot of intriguingly drawn details. This is the sort of song that one can imagine taking place in a smoky bar, or playing in one. "It Was You" is a song about low-key romantic devotion, again with jazzy instrumentation and a somewhat repetitive book, pretty easy to vibe with and one of the more popular songs from the album so far. "A Song With No Name" is a lovely and reflective but also somewhat melancholy acoustic ballad about insecurity in love. "Uh Oh" has a rather dark and conflicted attitude about it, with a driving beat and layered instrumentation that certainly lives up to its name. "Wintertime" is an interesting and quirky song that shows the narrator reflecting on loss and a relationship that appears to bear a close relationship with the winter season. "Just A Little Bit" is a playful if somewhat melancholy song about a narrator who refuses to be "the one" or a muse for what is something that she views as just passing and temporary.
It's hard to imagine Norah Jones finding very many new fans from this particular project. It's an enjoyable mini-album, certainly a vibe with tasteful, jazzy, and elegant songs with beautiful instrumentation and often reflective and elegantly painted lyrics. But if you've been a fan of Norah Jones from the beginning, this is certainly an album you will be able to enjoy very easily. This isn't the sort of project that was made to set the charts on fire, but if you want something to listen to by a fireplace in those cool fall and winter months to reflect on life and love, this will certainly do the trick nicely.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Nov 5, 2021 2:06:53 GMT -5
Voyage, by ABBA
Voyage is the first new album of ABBA material since 1982's The Visitors (review forthcoming), and marks a striking return for the Swedish pop group. Those who have been paying attention to my single reviews have seen that I have been hyped for this project for a while as three songs have been released and reviewed as singles already [1]. So far the songs released have a sense of a victory lap combined with a return to the sound of ABBA mixed with a timely reminder of the present-day and the passage of time that has taken place between ABBA's heyday and today. So where does this album sit as a whole? Let us see.
Voyage begins with the beautiful "I Still Have Faith In You," with its implicit musical promise of good faith between the group members. Following that is "When You Danced With Me," a beautiful love song that definitely hits the right nostalgic angles and an intriguing musical background that fits in well with their existing body of work. "Little Things" is a Christmas song that straddles a few boundaries in reflecting on children as well on the role adults play in the festival. "Don't Shut Me Down," then follows, a song that hints on contemporary technology as well as the group's history, a satisfying mixture that fits with the ABBA sound. "Just A Notion" then continues with another classic ABBA track that reflects on the tension between romantic notions and reality that runs through ABBA's work as a whole. "I Can Be That Woman" is a melancholy song about love and the feeling of jealousy in a dysfunctional relationship. "Keep An Eye On Dan" then turns ominous with its discussions of suspicion and warning about things becoming traumatic and getting out of hand in what appears to be a co-parenting relationship. "Bumblebee" turns to a pastoral mood with soaring instrumentals and bittersweet lyrics. "No Doubt About It" expresses a self-critical view of self-sabotaging tendencies in a relationship with a complex instrumental palette. "Ode To Freedom" then closes the album with a beautiful song that lives up to its name with harmonies, gorgeous strings, and a long instrumental introduction.
If you are and have been a fan for ABBA, this album is exactly what one would expect from the band after their long hiatus, especially if you have enjoyed the singles released before the album. This is a project that sits within the emotional register of the group's work as a whole, that expresses the passage of time as well as a look at the aging process in the voices of the group, and that also looks in a couple of tracks towards the next generation as well. While it is to be regretted that we missed out on dozens of great albums over the course of nearly 40 years off, this album is worth the wait. It provides a fitting expression of the way that four people can recapture the magic of participating together in the creation of beautiful music that both acknowledges and transcends the ravages of time.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Nov 21, 2021 20:23:01 GMT -5
An Evening With Silk Sonic, by Silk Sonic
Silk Sonic is a musical group made up of Anderson.Paak and Bruno Mars, along with significant contributions by Bootsy Collins and others who share a love and appreciation of retro funk. Having at least mildly enjoyed the first two singles from the album, which were released prior to the album's release, I thought it would be worthwhile to give this album a listen and see what it provided as far as enjoyment. Is an album of 70's throwbacks like this one too much of a good thing or just right?
This is a short album of only 9 songs, and it can be said that it doesn't overstay its welcome. The first song is a short and entertaining intro that does its purpose and leaves 8 songs for the mini-album. "Leave The Door Open" is the second track, and it works just as well in the context of the album as it does as a hit single. "Fly As Me" is pretty obvious flexing, but it is done in a lighthearted way so as to not be offensive. "After Last Night" is the sort of sexy track that one would expect from this effort and it too is an enjoyable listen. "Smokin Out The Window," the current single, is a moving song about a troubled relationship. "Put On A Smile" is a song that sounds happy but is actually quite sad when it comes to pretending happiness. "777" reflects a confident feeling about gambling and the lure of easy money to solve one's problems. "Skate" has an effervescent charm about it about the joys of love. The album ends with "Blast Off," which has a feeling of enjoying the space age that fits just right for the vibe of this album.
The contemporary age of albums tends to have two tendencies, either to stream troll with bloated track lists or to craft meaningful and enjoyable shorter albums that sometimes even veer towards the mini-album that focus on quality rather than quantity. This is an album that definitely does not overstay its welcome. One would have wanted more good songs, but better 8 good songs with an enjoyable intro than 30 songs that are relentlessly mediocre. If you have a fondness for 70's funk and soul, this album is certainly a pleasant one. I'm not sure the extent to which I think that the members of Silk Sonic transcend their influences, but if someone went back in this time with this album to the original time, it would still slap and be likely to have hits, and that is enough to be enjoyable for my tastes.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Nov 24, 2021 19:35:26 GMT -5
Tug Of War, by Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney is not known by many people as a person of consistent albums, but as someone who has been a great fan of his for some time, thought it would be worthwhile to check out some of his albums as a way of appreciating his qualities as a musician. Today, therefore, we will be looking at his early 80's comeback album of sorts after the end of Wings, Tug Of War, which was viewed far higher at the time than it has been viewed in retrospect. Is this album worthy of the praise it got as an excellent album in the past or the revisionist negativity that many people have given to it more recently?
This review is of the 2015 remastered version, the version that is available on streaming. The album begins with the title track, with its desire for peace in the face of conflict, a desire that is no less fervent now than when the album was made in the early 1980's. After that comes the beautiful "Take It Away," with its look at the way that music can be used to overcome the difficulties of connect disparate people together. "Somebody Who Cares" is a touching and lovely ballad about the narrator's devotion to his partner. "What's That You're Doing" is the first song on this album that is a duet between Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder and it is the better one of the two, with its expression of bewilderment at the way that someone interacts with a lover. "Here Today" is a beautiful and touching first-draft comment by McCartney on the death of John Lennon and like Elton John's "Hey Hey Johnny" it is a melancholy but beautiful song. "Ballroom Dancing" then follows with a rocking narrative song that shows a love of ballroom dancing and nostalgia about the past. "The Pound Is Sinking" is a political song that somewhat fails to hit the market about the relationship of currency and political stability. "Wanderlust" is a gorgeous piano ballad about the longing for travel and insight and freedom. "Get It" is a guitar-picking duet with Carl Perkins with a bit of a boogie beat about the way that life can sometimes beat you up even while you continue looking for how to get the good. "Be What You See (Link)" is a short but haunting track. "Dress Me Up As A Robber" features Paul McCartney dealing with the question of costume and identity with an interesting falsetto voice and some lovely instrumentation including a Spanish guitar. Ebony And Ivory is the very popular (at the time) but not very well appreciated (presently) song where McCartney and Stevie Wonder express some naive hopes about racial reconciliation.
Tug Of War is an interesting album in that it is an excellent album but one that also exposes that McCartney (like many artists) is at his weakest when trying to speak about political concerns. At least four of these songs directly address problems that McCartney had to deal with, and the two that address political issues like race ("Ebony and Ivory") and currency policy ("The Pound Is Sinking") are the only songs in this album that don't work well. On the other hand, there are a few songs that have not been remembered from this album that deserve to be far better appreciated, especially the the title track and the sublime "Wanderlust," which is a real hidden gem in the deep McCartney catalog. Overall, then, this is an album that would have been fantastic in a less political ten tracks but even at twelve tracks certainly remains a worthwhile high point that shows McCartney and his ideals even if his politics are often wide off the mark.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Dec 6, 2021 15:26:24 GMT -5
I Robot, by the Alan Parsons Project
As someone who is a fan of the Alan Parsons project, I took the opportunity to listen to their first album as a way of seeing to what extent the qualities of the group that I enjoyed were present from the beginning. Given the fact that this particular project springs, like many of their albums, from the realms of science fiction culture, it is interesting to see how this concept album serves to set a template for later efforts. Strikingly, from listening to this album it is clear that there was a focus and idea about music and production and vocals from the beginning of the group that continued on from there.
What we find in this album is ten tracks that are pretty straightforward for those who are familiar with the work of the Alan Parsons Project as a whole. There are spacious instrumental beds, inventive and creative production, solid vocals from a variety of artists. There is a blending of tracks and transitions that would work even better if they were not broken up (as they often are on Spotify) by intrusive advertising. Some tracks, like "I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You," make for worthwhile and impressive singles, while the album is also full of unexpected highlights from "Some Other Time," a lovely album track, to the moving closer "Genesis Ch.1 V.32," which cleverly seeks to add on to the following biblical language: "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which <em>is</em> upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which <em>is</em> the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein <em>there is</em> life, <em>I have given</em> every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, <em>it was</em> very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."
Overall, this album sets a standard that the group would follow over the course of more than a dozen works. Starting strong in both popular success as well as artistic quality, the Alan Parsons project would go on and reference numerous other aspects of culture and art and engage in a conversation about historoy and culture and the way that human beings interact with them and reflect on them that gave a high moral and intellectual tone to their music in general. This is a band well worth checking out and I look forward to listening to a lot more music from them in the future. If I don't like this album quite as much as Pyramid it is at least the same sort of album that is excellent throughout.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Dec 8, 2021 16:58:02 GMT -5
Jupiter Calling, by the Corrs
Although I have been a fan of the Corrs since their arrival in the mid-1990's with an album powered by driving and powerful songs like "Forgiven, Not Forgotten," "The Right Time," and instrumentals like "The Minstrel Boy" and "Toss The Feathers" which would set a template for future releases, I must admit that it took me a long time to listen to their comeback album from 2016 in Jupiter Calling. The album was not popular, and did not receive a lot of attention, and as the band had gone on hiatus about a decade or so before the album was just not a priority of mine. That is a great shame, as listening to this album demonstrates as always the sensitivity the Corrs have shown to the times and the way their own lives and the situation of our world has had a strong impact on their music.
The album itself is thirteen songs, none of them an instrumental--although closing track "The Sun And The Moon" closes with a gorgeous instrumental coda that lasts for a few minutes that might count in a pinch if one is being fussy about it. This album begins with the moody "Son Of Solomon" and then makes its way through twelve other tracks that deal with life, love, biblical concerns (including "Road To Eden"), and a general tone that wavers between cautious optimism ("Butter Flutter") and deep melancholy ("Dear Life," "SOS"). The album has a sense of approaching darkness ("Chasing Shadows," "Season Of Our Love), and a desire for lasting love despite the feeling of loss and sadness ("Bulletproof Love," "A Love Divine," "Hit My Ground Running") as well as a desire to "Live Before I Die." In its general tone, it reminds the listener a lot of some of the latter era Corrs albums like "Borrowed Heaven," but the Corrs have always blended beautiful folk with singer-songwriter pop, and this album is no different in that mix, even if the album lacks an obvious single.
If you are a fan of the Corrs at this point, you have stuck with them through thick and thin and listened to their music for a long while even while the band as a whole was not putting out any new music. This album fits right along with the way that the Corrs have sounded and gives a melancholy and reflective picture of where the band has been at the last few years. If the album isn't an obvious bestseller, it is a great album nonetheless and one whose melancholy and autumnal mood is something I can relate to a great deal. This is an album that certainly signals a maintenance of form for the Corrs and that their comeback can be as long as they want it to be. If they make any future albums, I will hopefully be a lot faster to listen to them than I was with this one.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Dec 19, 2021 13:48:42 GMT -5
Amanda Marshall, by Amanda Marshall
During the mid-to-late 1990's, I used to buy a lot of albums and this was an album I bought on cassette tape on the strength of its moderate hit single "Birmingham." It had been some time since I had listened to the album, and I listened to it again to reflect upon whether the album still held up to me, since Amanda Marshall never ended up with a huge pop career and none of her songs have had a great deal of nostalgia in the general population. Was the album something I liked at the time or is it something that has stood the test of time and deserves to be better known? Here is a track-by-track review:
Let It Rain: The album begins with a somber and reflective song that reflects on the struggle against darkness in something that has Christian overtones. To some listeners this may not be a good thing, but to me it is a very good thing indeed as it reflects the desire to overcome evil.
Birmingham: This is the album's big hit single, something that hasn't really carried on to the age of streaming, where it is the fifth most popular song of the album on Spotify. Still, this is a gorgeous and dark song that reflects on the desire of a battered and abused wife to seek freedom.
Fall From Grace: This song is a mid-tempo acoustic guitar driven number that compares the passion of love to a falling from grace, and the song itself reflects on angels and the feeling of isolation and desiring of a love that seems particularly elusive.
Dark Horse: Another acoustic-guitar driven song, this one reflects on a relationship that has endured despite the criticism that came to it. Despite its general optimism, it has the air of realism about it, and even a hint of bittersweetness, that gives it depth.
Beautiful Goodbye: This melancholy ballad reflects on the downside of love and the regret that follows from broken relationships and the desire to have a second chance without the confidence that it will come to pass. The song also has a pretty driving breakdown as well that adds to the emotional feel of the song.
Sitting On Top Of The World: This song continues on a mode of optimism, albeit cautious optimism, with a lovely guitar part, that expresses that as long as a relationship continues one will be sitting on top of the world, again with the hint of criticism of the relationship from the outside.
Last Exit To Eden: A lovely and melancholy acoustic ballad, this song has more religious overtones, seeming like it is related to Birmingham, and the desire to return to innocence and salvation, with a hint of ominous reflection on the feeling that one has been trapped in darkness.
Trust Me (This Is Love): This song, probably my favorite from the album as a whole, is another song that falls under the cautious optimism about love, looking for the choice of love and intimacy to overcome the temporary difficulties and doubts that one faces in life.
Let's Get Lost: This is another one of the songs on this album that show a solidarity with a partner despite social disapproval, desiring to leave the judgmental area where they are and move to another place where they can start again.
Promises: This is another one of my favorites on the album, and it comes with a rather melancholy message, reflecting on the broken state of the world and being too young to die and too old to believe in promises, a cynical but by no means inaccurate take on the contemporary world.
Overall, this album definitely holds up for me. While admittedly the subject matter and tone and approach of the album is rather narrow, reflecting love and relationships and feelings of trust or its absence, it happens to strike the precise balance between melancholy and cautious and guarded optimism that I possess as a person, and the album's blend between piano and guitar-ballads and generally slow to mid-tempo sound is also something that is appealing to me. Not everyone will find this album as appealing as I do, but if you like music that reflects on spiritual themes but does so with a high degree of realism and honest self-examination, this is a great album.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Dec 25, 2021 1:56:02 GMT -5
The Essential Poco, by Poco
Poco is a band that has a complicated history that extends over more than twenty years of making music on four different music labels. To get their singles and a general gist of their material in a best-of collection that includes their entire career is by no means an easy task. One thing that makes this collection a worthwhile one to listen to is that it includes so many tracks--17 songs is far more than the casual listener will likely know--I myself had only heard three songs by the group before listening to this album so it was a great help in familiarizing myself with the group's material. The songs are organized in chronological fashion, and so this album helps out a lot in allowing the listener to recognize the transition between the rather rootsy country rock that the group began with in the aftermath of Buffalo Springfield and in the period before the founding of the Eagles and in the way that the group became more closely aligned with a musically proficient sound that was compatible with the adult contemporary of the late 1970's and 1980's where they achieved their greatest popular success.
This particular album contains 17 tracks and it is rather telling and interesting that most of the tracks do not happen to be singles. It is interesting that the songs that the group released--most of which were not hits--are not the songs that this compilation tends to deem as essential, except for the band's three biggest hits (which I already knew), and another top 50 song from the early 80's. The first seven or so songs here are pretty spare country-rock songs with a definite acoustic tendency, two of which are live tracks, and which demonstrate the foundation of the southern Californian country rock sound that would be carried by the Eagles into the mainstream. While "Pickin' Up The Pieces" is an early standout track, for me the collection starts getting noticeably better around "A Good Feelin' To Know" and "Go And Say Goodbye," when the instrumentation starts becoming notably improved over the rather rudimentary grooves that are in most of the early songs. Aside from the band's biggest hits, songs like "Shoot For The Moon" and "When It All Began" are both excellent ones as well that demonstrate the group was more than just a few songs.
In listening to this album, I get the feeling that there is a large an appreciative fanbase of Poco that would probably not consider me a real fan because I prefer their more melodic adult contemporary period that was the most commercial successful of their eras. Be that is it may, it is fascinating to see the group maintain their themes of love and relationships and the ups and downs resulting in them as well as maintaining their understanding of their own place in music from beginning to end. It is probably best to approach this album with the understanding that this band is far more significant than it may seem from looking at the chart records alone. However it is you prefer your Poco, they deserved a lot more success than they got, and there is little disagreement that one can sensibly make about that.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Dec 27, 2021 20:52:30 GMT -5
Rhino Hi-Five: Crosby, Stills, & Nash
Crosby, Stills, & Nash were an early and well-regarded folk-rock supergroup that are responsible for a great deal of excellent songs in a career that extended for many years. Rhino has tried their usual task of summarizing a lengthy and productive career into five retrospective tracks that serve to introduce those who are unaware of an act's catalog to some of the songs the Rhino label finds to be notable. Here is a track-by-track review:
Pre-Road Downs: This song is a short one, with a somewhat basic set of lyrics, that features the usual CSN harmonies and also includes apparent references to the need to hide the roaches--which I am going to guess have to do with the group's marijuana smoking here.
Daylight Again: This song, the title track of the early 1980's album that featured hits like Southern Cross and Wasted On The Way, is a haunting track about the threat of doomsday, with suitably minor-key instrumentation and the usual lovely harmonies that one expects from this group.
Song With No Words: This song literally has no words and features the members of the group harmonizing nonsense syllables over acoustic instrumentation. Since it serves as more or less an instrumental, it is not a song that one needs to analyze as much as enjoy, since it contains a great deal of what makes the group enjoyable anyway.
Song For Susan: This song is a somewhat obscure ballad but it's certainly a lovely one, even if it not nearly as well known as some of the band's other songs in this vein.
Live It Up: This song has some driving 80's production, including the drums, and the thematic call to live it up that sounds like pretty bog-standard rock for the time. If this song isn't exactly the most representative song of the CSN catalog, it is certainly an enjoyable song that demonstrates how the group was able to survive the changes of pop-rock music into the 1980's.
Even as someone who has listened to several of these collections now and who is used to the fact that the collections often select only a very small and not very representative part of an act's catalog, this song's choice of five songs is deeply baffling. There are many recognized and excellent hit songs that CSN, or CSNY, or perhaps even CN had that could have been placed here as a way of reminding listeners that they were already familiar with the group but did not know. Songs like Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Ohio, Our House, and many others (including a couple already mentioned above), could have been put on this collection, but while the songs here are obscure and few casual listeners of the group are likely to know them, they are good songs and that is enough to make this an enjoyable collection, if a somewhat puzzling one in not including any hits whatsoever.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Dec 28, 2021 15:46:02 GMT -5
Timeless...The Musical Legacy, by Badfinger
I have to say that Badfinger is one of my favorite musical acts of all time. A Welsh power pop group that was mentored by the Beatles (and received some songs and musical assistance from a couple of members of the group during the course of their career) and was once on Apple Records until it fell apart, the group had a great body of work during its heyday in the late 1960's and early 1970's but seemed to be absolutely snakebit when it came to issues of business that led in large part to intense conflicts and difficulties that led its two most creative members to commit suicide. Even with that tragic history, the group managed to create some amazing music that has a timeless legacy, even if they are not nearly as well known as they should be. This album serves as a somewhat rare example of a retrospective that does not involve a re-recording that provides a listen to the remastered versions of their timeless hits.
This particular compilation is a beefy one at sixteen tracks. The first half or so of the compilation is made up of songs that many people who are fond of 70's power pop might be familiar with--including such classics as Day After Day, Without You (remade into a hit by Henry Nilsson and later covered by Mariah Carey), Come And Get It, Maybe Tomorrow, No Matter What, Baby Blue, and Name Of The Game. Interspersed with these songs that the casual listener may be familiar with are lesser known tracks like Rock Of All Ages, I'll Be The One, Apple Of My Eye, Suitcase, the title track Timeless, Dennis, and Love Is Gonna Come At Last that are focused on the latter part of the album. A mixture of popular and obscure songs, with a variety of sounds, many of them guitar driven but some of them piano-driven, some of them slow and melancholy ballads and others driving rock tunes, this album gives a good picture of the body of work of Badfinger as a whole.
Overall, listening to this compilation in the aftermath of the division and misery suffered by the band and its members over the course of the last few decades casts a heavy feeling of melancholy and sorrow. Knowing how things turned out for the group makes songs like Timeless, Suitcase, Rock Of All Ages, Dennis, and Apple Of My Eye particularly deep in meaning and significance, and mocks the hopes of more optimistic tracks like Maybe Tomorrow and Love Is Gonna Come At Last. Over and over again, the group explored themes of loneliness and isolation, hope and despair, memory, love, and concerns about money and interpersonal conflict. These themes helped define their existence as a band as well as their own lives, and remind us that the timeless of their music came a wellspring of trouble that the group turned into haunting and beautiful music that remains resonant today, even likely among those who do not know this history in detail.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Dec 29, 2021 12:43:41 GMT -5
The Emitt Rhodes Recordings (1969-1973), by Emitt Rhodes
This particular two-cd collection of songs by the obscure but vitally important singer-songwriter-producer Emitt Rhodes costs a ridiculous amount of money to buy in physical copies. However, it now appears on Spotify, so I was able to listen to the more than two hours of music contained in the 48 songs that made up the four albums that Emitt Rhodes made between 1969 and 1973 before taking a long hiatus as a recording artist that would last until just a few years before his death. Considering the massive amount of music that is here, it gives an idea of just what sort of music was lurking beneath the surface that would later help inspire the indie pop movement where similar one-man bands wrote songs, sang them, and played just about every instrument on them while also producing them. If this did not make for an obvious way to chart successful albums and singles at the time, it was enormously influential on future artists, and it was an approach that is worthy of respect.
With as many songs as appear here, it is remarkable that they don't just all run together given that they were such a personal creation. "Mary Will You Take My Hand" has beautiful steel drums that give the song a Caribbean feel. "In The Days Of Old" has lovely horns and trumpet to add to the instrumentation. "With My Face On The Floor" has a driving piano and guitar with multitracked vocals and is simply a should-have been massive hit. "Promises I've Made" has an ominous instrumental bridge. "Ever Find Yourself Running" has a beautiful woodwinds sound to it. "Birthday Lady" has some fuzzy guitars, as does "My Love Is Strong." "Really Wanted You" experiments with some interesting rhythm guitar. "Warm Self-Sacrifice" has a rather simple piano melody. "Drawn To You" features a beautiful saxophone part. "Blue Horizon" has a lovely mandolin part. "Nights Are Lonely" has an interesting closing instrumental melody. "Bad Man" has a slinky saxophone part to go along with its material. "Farewell To Paradise" has a bittersweet harmonica part. When one is listening to two hours of concentrated material by a singer songwriter, these are the sorts of things that draw attention to the way that Rhodes added appropriate instrumentation as a way of expressing the theme and content of the music he was making.
When listening to this material, it is hard not to feel that this songwriter should be vastly better known than he is. This material is so gorgeous, so well written and so well performed and produced that it is hard to believe how obscure this material has been since its creation. This two-album set is made up of four albums that were released by the artist in a four-year period in which he was contractually obligated to make two albums a year, a pace he could not keep up given he was doing nearly everything himself. Still, if you are fond of indie pop and the diy aesthetic in that sort of music, this collection has an immensely beautiful sound to it and many of the songs are filled with a touching mixture of hard-won optimism, bittersweetness, and wistful melancholy with reflections on life, loneliness, love, and death. There is a lot here to savor, to ponder over and to enjoy.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Dec 31, 2021 0:45:36 GMT -5
So, by Peter Gabriel
After releasing several albums that featured well-regarded but not particularly popular songs (although, it must be admitted, several of them became classics), this album featured the popular breakthrough for Peter Gabriel onto the mainstream charts. While his later albums were unable to maintain the commercial peak that this album demonstrated, it must be admitted that this album was by no means a sellout. It was not that Peter Gabriel made an album that got rid of his distinctive elements, it was just that he made an album that happened to be immensely accessible to a lot of people who had not known him before, and even more than thirty years after the album, this work remains an interesting and compelling one that deserves attention and respect.
The album begins with "Red Rain," a gorgeous and melancholy song that features some classic production and Gabriel's gritty voice. After that comes "Sledgehammer," a the biggest smash hit of this album and one that was both a powerful song and an amazing vehicle for Gabriel's creative musical videos, a pattern of his career. "Don't Give Up" is a gorgeous and reflective song that features the backing vocals of frequent collaborator Kate Bush that seeks to encourage the listener. "This Voice Again" reflects on the longing for love and the struggle with negative self-talk. "Mercy Street" follows with another reflecting song about the desire for mercy from one's father. "Big Time" looks at the arrogance of cultural and institutional elites in their big words and big cities. "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" is an ominous mostly instrumental track that focuses on blind obedience. "This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds)" is an avant-garde track with a somewhat puzzling and intriguing mood about it about watching and being watched. "In Your Eyes" then closes the album with a gorgeous and powerful love song that, even if very familiar, still hits hard in the context of this album.
As far as albums go, this one is a classic that remains and poignant and beautiful today as it was when it was first released. More than half of the songs on this album have endured as classics: "Sledgehammer," "In Your Eyes," "Don't Give Up," "Big Time," and "Red Rain." While many 80's albums have aged badly because of production that included a great deal of unnecessary and gimmicky elements, this album excels in giving the listener a sense of space that lets the haunting and powerful lyrics and the subtle musical touches have enough room to settle in and allow the listener to think about what is being sung. Gabriel's song mixes a variety of themes, including love, encouragement, longsuffering, and a critical attitude towards the failings of society and institutions that remains vital today. This is not an album that panders to its audience, but rather presents an honest and deeply poignant look at life, and that resonates long after it ends.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Jan 3, 2022 1:49:10 GMT -5
Sob Rock, by John Mayer
This is an album that is cloaked in a bit of ambiguity. What does Sob Rock mean? Is John Mayer making a reference to the downbeat mood of this album (sobbing), either ironic or straightforward, or is he playing to his unsympathetic reputation and comparing himself to an s.o.b.? It is not plain from the contents of this album. Is this album a pastiche or parody of the 80's guitar-driven rock of albums like Journeyman from Eric Clapton, or is this album an homage to such a tradition and a stellar example of what kind of great album can be made as a throwback to the 1980's that showcases contemporary songwriting and production but also a lot of excellent looks to the past? It is not plain from the contents of this album. Perhaps this album seeks to have it both ways, being possible to read both as ironic and sarcastic on the one hand but also as a genuine heartfelt effort on the other hand. The same ambiguity that haunts the appraisal of John Mayer as an artist hangs over this album in particular.
This album begins with one of my favorite singles from last year, "Last Train Running," with Maren Morris, a gorgeous song about time running out and the longing for love. "Shouldn't Matter But It Does," reflects on the end of a relationship and the pain that comes from a lack of honest and open communication about what is going on wrong. "New Light," a standalone single from a couple of years ago, takes on a new context as a pensive and reflective song about the way we tend to get frozen in pictures of the past and not seen in a new light that fits in well with the album as a whole. "Why You No Love Me" is a slow reflection on the absence of love. "Wild Blue" is a dreamy but also somewhat melancholy reflecting on the single life. "Shot In The Dark" is a touching song about the chancy and unpredictable nature of relationships and longing. "I Guess I Just Feel Like" is a bleak and somewhat desolate reflection on the feeling of despair that the singer has to struggle against. "Til The Right One Comes" is a mid-tempo discussion of the longing for the right one to come even in the face of a brutal and unkind world. "Carry Me Away" talks about the excitement of infatuation and wildness as an antidote to what is safe and comfortable. The album closes with "All I Want Is To Be With You," which is a slow dirge-like song about the pretense of wanting someone but pretending that one has moved on.
What is it about this album that works despite the fact that John Mayer remains the most unsympathetic part of this album? The album alternates between mid-tempo and slow, is consistently filled with some excellent guitar parts and some other instruments and some stellar production that gives the arrangement some space, and shows Mayer to be his own worst enemy when it comes to love and relationships. If Mayer is by no means a sympathetic figure in this album (or in life), he is certainly painfully relatable if you are someone like this listener at least. This album resembles Battle Studies in its painfully reflective discussion about the problems of life and love that John Mayer faces, but one wonders if Mayer has self-awareness but lacks the ability to make the improvements in his life and attitude that would allow him to rise above the same cycle of disastrously bad romances. Even so, this album is definitely a mood, even if you do not happen to like the artist as a person.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Jan 5, 2022 16:55:51 GMT -5
My Dear Melancholy (EP), by The Weeknd
Is it an advantage or a disadvantage to know something about the personal life of the people involved with making music? As someone who is moderately fond of the artist, especially his more recent work, I happen to know that this EP, a stopgap of sorts between two immensely popular eras, was written in the aftermath of a break-up between the artist and Selena Gomez, a pop star in her own right and one who often finds herself to be the subject of the music of other people, especially her exes. To what extent does that color one's interpretation of the material? By and large I would prefer to take the songs as is and then project whatever meaning I have, but knowing something of the personal life and details involved does color what I find to be in these songs, for better or worse, and it is worthwhile to acknowledge such a thing as a reviewer.
The album begins with the popular and moody "Call Out My Name," where the artist opines about desiring for his estranged partner to call out his name still for all the time of loyal love that he had showed to her. "Try Me" is an invitation to someone who has been previously unavailable to try him out as a partner, with a bit of a seductive dance-pop production. "Wasted Time" shows the singer discussing the wasted time he spent with someone else while wanting someone else for himself only over a nervous and jittery beat. "I Was Never There," one of two tracks with Gesaffelstein, continues the general approach of a downbeat and well-produced song about regret over the problems of the past, with the feeling that it doesn't matter. "Hurt You," the second co-credited track, has a bit of ambivalence as the artist goes into considerable detail about his longings for her while stating that he doesn't want to hurt her, apparently unaware of how the two are somewhat contradictory sentiments. "Privilege" is another downbeat song that deals with the breakup and the suffering of his former partner and his own attempts to come to grips with it by sleeping with someone else and getting back into problem drinking and pill use. The EP then ends with an a capella rendition of the only hit of the collection, providing a melancholy and appropriately bookended collection of sad songs.
It may be becoming a bit of a recent trend in the material I review, but this EP manages to be excellent despite the fact that it does not portray either the singer or his ex in a flattering fashion. Celebrities are not generally admirable people, or people whose views matter or whose lifestyles are worth emulating, and this album is a worthwhile exploration into why this is the case. Abel is a wealthy and talented artist, but this album shows him brokenhearted over the breakup with Selena Gomez, drinking and engaging in sex he knows to be meaningless and taking pills to cope with the loneliness and reflecting upon the gloomy fact that he almost donated a kidney to save the life of someone who couldn't commit to him, even if he desperately wants to keep having passionate sex with her. This album is honest, but if that honesty is admirable, it is also rather disturbing to think of how it is that celebrities live and the material from which they draw the inspiration for their work.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Jan 7, 2022 1:27:40 GMT -5
Dawn FM, by the Weeknd
There is little question that the Weeknd has been a bit overexposed over the last couple of years. Of course, that is largely due to the fact that After Hours was one of the most successful releases of the last few years in terms of singles with longevity, with three #1hits in three consecutive years with "Heartless," "Blinding Lights," the most successful fond in current pop history, and "Save Your Tears," along with the moderate hit "In Your Eyes." And if that was not enough, Abel found himself hopping in on what seems like dozens of other singles for a wide variety of artists ranging from Post Malone, Swedish House Mafia, to Doja Cat, some of which ended up being proper hits in their own right. So, it is perhaps understandable that after hearing him so often, and seeing him so often in the charts, some of us thought it might have been wise for him to take a bit of time off, but no, here he comes with a full-length LP only a bit more than two years after his previous album was released. So, how is it?
The album begins with an intro "Dawn FM," which features some gorgeous harmonies and a radio commercial for the album. "Gasoline" has a spare beat and begins with the artist in a strange voice (for him), but reflecting on emptiness, a mood that fits that fits the rather spare production before going to a more regular sound of his voice. "How Do I Make You Love Me?" has some classic 80's production and echoes a frequent concern of the artist and many others in wondering, a catchy song that seems an obvious potential single, and one that blends right into "Take My Breath," the first single from the album and a moderate hit in its own right. "Sacrifice" paints the singer in a rather dark light, struggling with someone he finds attractive but doesn't want to get entangled with, not willing to sacrifice for her. "A Tale By Quincy" is a spoken word discussion by someone with a dramatic upbringing with mother issues set to a funky beat. This segues into "Out Of Time," which shows a love that appears to be impossible because the would-be partner has closed her heart, ending with a short radio ad for the fictional radio station. "Here We Go....Again," (featuring Tyler The Creator) is introduced as easy listening, but it features some pointed discussion about the darker side of celebrity relationships with vocals alarmingly like a Michael Jackson song, again ending with a radio station promo.
The second half of this album begins with "Best Friends," another song that discusses the tension between friendship and intimacy and the way that the feelings change what people want with each other. "Is There Someone Else," with chipmunked beginning vocals, contains the artist struggling with jealousy and the knowledge that his partner is keeping secrets from him, despite his longing to be with her forever and facing his own past mistakes. This song blends seamlessly into "Starry Eyes," which features rather chilly production and a discussion of the relationship between two people struggling with brokenness striving to commit to love each other. "Every Angel Is Terrifying" is a suitably ominous song with a talking part set to some 80's production that appears to be a sort of commercial break within the album that advertise a dark vision of the afterlife. "Don't Break My Heart" features more odd vocal production, but shows the struggles of people dealing with repeated heartbreak and its ominous repercussions on sensitive people. "I Heard You're Married" (featuring Lil Wayne) is a song that definitely reflects on a failure of communication about a rather important fact in someone's life. "Less Than Zero" has 80's production (and a title that references 80's pop culture) that also deals with the tension between wanting someone and knowing one will never be anything to them. The final song, "Phantom Regret By Jim," contains another lengthy radio promo that hints at the radio station being an aspect of divine judgment, along with more 80's references that come too fast to count, almost.
In many ways, this album is a showcase of Abel's beloved 80's production and a continued effort to mine relationship problems, melancholy, and self-loathing, themes that run through his body of work as a whole. Yet this album certainly is not stale, as it serves as an impressive concept album of an 80's radio station that also doubles as an unfriendly guide to one's afterlife, prompting the listener to think of regrets and mistakes, opportunities missed in relationships, or relationships with unsuitable and unreliable and immoral people who keep rather important secrets from those who love them. Indeed, as a listener of this album who is fond of progressive rock by such acts as the Alan Parsons Project, this feels like it belongs in that sort of conversation of an album that is greater than the sum of its parts, perhaps not filled with too many obvious single choices, but an album that feels like a compelling and coherent album worth listening to beginning to end and pondering on what it means to face judgment for a life that has not been well lived and that the artist is holding himself accountable for, with a lot of regret in the process.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Jan 9, 2022 14:24:38 GMT -5
Collapse Into Now, by R.E.M.
When one listens to the last album by a band, there is a certain sense of melancholy in the foreknowledge that there was nothing original after this. The material of an album takes on a certain glow in knowing that this is the end. Collapse Into Now happens to be last studio album by alternative rock greats R.E.M., and what sort of enjoyment is there in listening to their somewhat obscure final album to see what it was that the band had to offer at its moment of dissolution? Is this album a tired farewell or is it a resolute defiance of the final end that appears to be approaching? Let us uncover this album track by track.
"Discoverer" begins the album with a rousing track that is also a retrospective look at how one can be a discoverer and accomplish great deeds but leave a mess behind you, as has been known for discoverers. "All The Best" is another driving rock song that pushes for one more time to show the younger kids how to make good rock music. "Überlin" is a pleasant song, and a worthy single, about wanting to go out with someone. "Oh My Heart" is another song that reflects on the relationship of one's heart to the state of music and youth. "It Happened Today" is a somewhat vague but beautiful bittersweet celebratory ode. "Every Day Is Yours To Win" manages to be a cynical empowerment song, but a lovely one nonetheless. "Mine Smell Like Honey" seems like a taunt with the singer praising his own efforts while saying that someone is going to do what they do anyway. "Walk It Back" is a melancholy effort at recovering an endangered relationship harmed by hostile communication. "Aligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter" is another one of those upbeat but nonsense songs that R.E.M. specialized in for much of their career. "That Someone Is You" is an upbeat and cheerful song of appreciation for someone. "Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Bando, and I" is a downbeat folk-rock song about the faults of heroes. "Blue" is a lengthy album closer that showcases distorted guitar, spoken-word lyrics, and a reprise of the first song to end the album where it began.
There is a sense of melancholy in listening to an album like this more than ten years after it was released. At the time, R.E.M. were thought to be tired retreads trying desperately to create vital new rock music decades after their peak, but in the aftermath of a decade that has been nothing but disastrous for rock music as a whole, this album listened with that space appears to be new, a defiant effort to provide one last example of a great album by a great band to teach the youngsters how it was done. And it was simply not followed up on by those who were most popular in the rock and alternative scene. And so this album remains as a melancholy and self-conscious farewell from a band that felt it could not provide anything new but still provided its sound better than a vast majority of what has come since then, and there is great sadness in that.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Jan 10, 2022 0:06:50 GMT -5
Accelerate, by R.E.M.
Going backwards from the last R.E.M. studio album, we come to the second-to-last such effort, Accelerate, an album that is if anything even more obscure than collapse into now, with only one song that has been streamed to any great degree ("Supernatural Superserious"). If one can say that the last album from the group feels like a farewell, do we find the same kind of feeling present in their penultimate album? It is not always accurate to read what we know of what happened into the past, but at the same time there are a lot of times where the issues that people and bands face fill their music for a while before things reach a crisis point, and can we see the same sort of feeling of struggle in this album that reflects a sense of malaise?
The album begins with "Living Well Is The Best Revenge," an upbeat and driving song that is a standout for this album and a great beginning. "Man-Sized Wreath" is an obscure song but one that feels like a bit of a victory lap. "Supernatural Superserious," the biggest hit off of the album, is a somewhat melancholy song but a good one, and one that suggests a somewhat mournful mood. "Hollow Man" shows the band wondering if they are indeed hollow men who have nothing more to say and offer than they already have before, a somewhat ominous sign, to be sure. "Houston" is a short track that reflects a sense of paranoia about the government and life. "Accelerate," the title track, shows a desire for a change of direction. "Until The Day Is Done" has a doomer view of the disaster that the band views society as in the face of the Great Recession, and also hints at their own looking forward to the end of their own story. "Mr. Richards" has a rather fierce tone that reflects the general fierce attitude the band is showing at this period. "Sing For The Submarine" reflects another gloomy picture of the destruction and rebuilding of things, including perhaps the band itself. "Horse To Water" is a fierce and heavily distorted short song that reflects anger towards to someone. "I'm Gonna DJ" reflects more frustration with the music industry and the desire to cut out the middleman.
This is not a pleasant album to listen to, in the sense of it being full of sublime and beautiful and uplifting tracks. While 2008 was not a good year for everyone, it was an especially rough year to be the sort of whiny leftist activists who had endured 8 years under George W. Bush as president and had been very bad-tempered about it the whole time. The mood of the band suggests anger and a desire for change and progress that would be simultaneously rewarded and frustrated in short order. Yet when one examines the frustration that the band appeared to have with saying something new, it is perhaps not surprising that this album is not as popular as most of the band's work is, because while it is by no means a bad album, it also tends to ruminate on its own frustration and anger more than it manages to say something useful or productive. A few songs on here are lovely, but they are when the anger burns out and what is left is sadness and gloominess. Anger is not a mood that suits this band well.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Jan 11, 2022 2:36:15 GMT -5
Encanto (OST), by various artists
I would like to preface this review by saying that I have not yet seen the film that this soundtrack is for and that I have no particular plans to do so. Whether that is an advantage or disadvantage in listening to a soundtrack like this one is something I will leave up to the reader of this review. I go into listening to an album like this one as someone who is a fan of pop music as well as instrumental music (including film scores) and someone who is generally a fan of films. Does this album deserve the hype it has been receiving as a high point in Disney soundtracks? Does the soundtrack come off as appealing to those people who are not familiar with the movie and are looking to the music to be appealing on its own basis? Does this album make someone who has seen the film want to see it? These are the sorts of questions I ask.
This album is a lengthy one, with 44 tracks that take nearly two hours. I am going to divide this review, therefore, into three sections. The soundtrack itself largely shares this same division. The first section is made up of those tracks which have been seen as hits. The section is the rest of the vocal songs, with less detail told about them. The third section is made up of instrumental tracks that are part of the film score. The album begins with "The Family Madrigal," where the lead character introduces her magical family. "Waiting On A Miracle" reflects the lead character's struggle in that she doesn't have the conspicuous gifts that the rest of her family has. "Surface Pressure" is a theatrical song that shows a character under a lot of pressure. "We Don't Talk About Bruno" is a story-based song that has become, somewhat surprising, the big hit from the album. "What Else Can I Do?" is another character song that expresses the lead character's frustration that she is not able to do more. "Dos Oruguitas" is a gentle Spanish-language ballad. "All Of You" is one of those Disney songs that has the singer reflecting on herself and her family. "Hola Casita" is a brief story song greeting the family's magical house. "Colombia, Mi Encanto" is the Spanish-language title track, while "Two Oruguitas" is the English-language version of "Dos Oruguitas," and not nearly as popular, but is still a gentle ballad.
The second part of this soundtrack is made up of story songs by Germaine Franco that provide the music for the story in narrative segments that range from a bit less than a minute to a bit more than three and a half minutes. This music is the film score portion of the soundtrack, and features lovely instrumental score that shows a fair amount of variety. "Abre Los Ojos" is a gorgeous dream-like song, as is "I Need You". "Meet La Familia" has more of an acoustic Latin feel, as does "Antonio's Voice" and "El Baile Madrigal." Most of the rest of the score basically gives up the plot of the movie, like "The Cracks Emerge," "Tenacious Mirabel," "Breakfast Questions," "Bruno's Tower," "Mirabel's Discovery," "The Dysfunctional Tango," "Chasing The Past," "Family Allies," "The Ultimate Vision," "Isabela La Perfecta," "Las Hermanas Pelean" (The Sisters Fight), "The House Knows", "La Candela," "El Rio," "It Was Me," "El Camino De Mirabel" (The Way Of Mirabel), "Mirabel's Cumbia," "The Rat's Lair," "Tio Bruno," "Impresiones Del Encanto," and "La Cumbia De Mirabel," which seems to be a reprise of the earlier song. The soundtrack ends with eight instrumental versions of the Lin Miranda songs from the beginning of the soundtrack, namely "The Family Madrigal," "Waiting On A Miracle," "Surface Pressure," "We Don't Talk About Bruno," "What Else Can I Do?," "Dos Oruguitas," "All Of You," and "Colombia, Mi Encanto."
Overall, this soundtrack is longer than the film it is a soundtrack for, and it is a pretty punishing test of endurance. This is not to say that the album is a bad one, but as someone without the familiarity of the movie, this is not an album that is as rewarding as it is for those who see in the soundtrack the reminder of a beloved film. This is a film that takes soundtrack stream trolling to a level rarely seen outside of albums by the Migos and Chris Brown and similar artists. The vocal tracks give away large amounts of the plot but the lyrics come so fast and furious it is hard to make sense of it all. The score contains songs that are highly evocative of the tense mood of the film, divided between dramatic strings common to Disney movies (and other movies) full of disembodied and somewhat mystical voices as well as instrumentation with Spanish guitar and accordion that are more evocative of South American music. While this soundtrack is certainly pleasant to listen to, it appears more like fan service to those who already enjoy the film and have watched it enough times to repeat the wordy dialogue and know what the score tunes are referring to than it is an encouragement to people who have not seen the film and are not inclined to based on the soundtrack alone.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Jan 12, 2022 16:24:45 GMT -5
The Singles, by Savage Garden
There is frequently something interesting about best of compilations, as they serve as an entrance into a group that many would not otherwise know. This is the reverse of the process that happens for those who were fans of the original. It appears very unlikely at this point that we will ever get any new Savage Garden music, and so we must be content with the two great albums of pop music that we got, and yet in the years since the band broke up there have now been two compilations of the group's music, both of which I have now listened to. If you are a fan of music and you are interested in getting to know Savage Garden as an act, which is the better compilation to listen to, given that both of them are about the same length? Let us investigate.
This album is sixteen songs long and contains eight songs from both of the studio albums, demonstrating that in the past albums had pretty long runs, a far different situation from today. The album is organized in chronological order of the release of the singles, which gives an interesting look when there are songs that don't catch on before much more familiar later singles, which indicates that this album probably does not distinguish between promo singles and ones that are actively pushed by the label. Be that as it may, there are no duds here. The songs can be neatly divided between those songs that are very well known, those songs that are known by fans of the band if not by the general public, and those which are very obscure to most listeners. Savage Garden has only two songs that are well-known by the general public, their two #1 hits, one from each album ("Truly Madly Deeply" and "I Knew I Loved You"), with two other songs from their first album being a bit less well known ("I Want You" and "To The Moon And Back"). Most of the songs that Savage Garden fans would know and like most from the two studio albums are here as well ("Universe," "Santa Monica," "Tears Of Pearls," "The Animal Song," "Crash And Burn," "Affirmation," "Chained To You," "Hold Me," and "The Best Thing." These are all pretty stellar pop songs as well. Only a couple of songs, like "All Around Me," and "She" are obscure, and even these are decent enough if not as memorable as the rest.
In examining this album compared to the other Savage Garden retrospective that I have listened to, I have to say that I like this one a lot more to listen to. At least fourteen of the songs are ones that stick in my head as songs I want to listen to again. That is a vastly better ratio than the other retrospective, which means that on a scale of what songs one wants to listen to more, this album is the option for those who like the music that the albums had on them, and if one likes just about everything here one can always go to the two studio albums to see the few songs that are left off. That said, there are reasons why one would like to listen to the other retrospective if one wants to listen to B-sides of their most popular singles as well as hear what Darren Hayes is up to these days. If that is more to your tastes, that is fine, if they are not my particular tastes.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Jan 13, 2022 1:04:08 GMT -5
Be My Baby: The Very Best Of The Ronettes, by The Ronettes
As is something that may be a tradition here, given my somewhat morbid tastes, the report of the death of the titular Ron of the Ronettes has led me to listen to their best-of collection and see how it works. As far as it tracklist is concerned, there is at least one obvious defect of this collection and that is that it neglects one of their biggest hits, albeit not a representative one, in Sleigh Ride. While the Ronettes are pretty notable pop figures of the first part of the 1960's, with at least a couple of hits that have been remembered that found their way to this collection, admittedly most of their body of work is pretty obscure to me. So how does this collection serve as an introduction to their body of work?
This particular collection is eighteen songs long (again, the omission of Sleigh Ride is puzzling in light of the fact that there was still plenty of room for it after eighteen other mostly much more obscure songs). Of those songs I only knew of two of them ahead of time: the titular song "Be My Baby" and one other, "Baby, I Love You," which had been covered in a version I had as a b-side from a mid-90's single from Natalie Merchant. Besides those two songs, these songs are pleasant enough to listen to, with gorgeous harmonies and a generally wholesome and innocent look at love. A startling number of these songs are about the problems of being too young for marriage but longing for it anyway, with the assumption that one should not be in love before one can marry [1]. Indeed, the predominant theme of this collection of songs is longing for love and romance and marriage, with the assumption that all of these will be found in the first person one is drawn to and that one will enjoy all these things while one is young and that they will last for a lifetime. Is this how people lived for thousands of years, only for us to screw up and mock such expectations so thoroughly in a couple of generations?
The selection of these songs makes more sense when one knows the tangled label history of the Ronettes. In 1961, the Ronettes recorded eleven songs with Colpix Records. None of them are included here. No songs are included from their Christmas album released by Phil Spector, nor their novelty singles recorded as The Crystals, nor any material from the collection Everything You Wanted To Know About The Ronettes...But Were Afraid To Ask, which was released after this album was and included previously unknown songs recorded by the Ronettes at an unknown date before they broke up in 1965. Besides those omissions, this is an admirably complete record of songs, with all eight of the songs that hit the Hot 100 between 1963 and 1966 as well as a great many of the songs that were not released on their only studio album with Philles Records that were released later as part of the collections Phil Spector Wall Of Sound Rare Masters Vol. 1 and 2. Given the tangled musical history of this group, this is a pretty complete collection of their best work, all things considered.
The larger question, though, is whether this particular collection is for you. As someone with a high appreciation of the biblical standard of morality that these songs model as well as someone with a high degree of interest in music history, this is a beautiful collection of generally innocent songs. Not everyone will appreciate this collection, especially because there are not any songs about personal empowerment or the enjoyment of sexuality. Not everyone in the contemporary era can relate to just how these albums reflect on what is considered at present to be a rather juvenile and immature view of love. If you are able to look to a bygone age with some appreciation of rather different standards and ways than we now experience, this album is a time capsule of considerable value and interest.
[1] Admittedly, this is an assumption shared by the Song of Solomon.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Jan 14, 2022 23:30:04 GMT -5
30, by Adele
Adele has, since her youth, recorded a series of albums that is based on the year that the albums are recorded and released, and it is interesting to see the progress (or lack thereof), in the mentality and emotional maturity of an artist over time if they continue to mine the same territory over and over again. Some artists find a lane and manage to stay in it, which can be frustrating if they do not grow and develop while their audience does. It is hard to tell if Adele will fall into this trap--so far at least she has managed to have four immensely popular albums that mine the territory of romantic melodrama, and if this reviewer is at least a little impatient at her lack of growth and commitment, she seems not to be hurting in terms of popularity at the moment as her lack of progress in love and relationships is all too relatable even to those who wish it were not so. How does this album fare when viewed as a whole?
The album begins with "Strangers By Nature," a jazzy ballad, that seems to set the tone of the album as dealing with alienation and regret, which is a great start. "Easy On Me," the album's smash first single, follows, and seems to seek to avoid responsibility for what is going on with the artist and someone else. "My Little Love" is six and a half minutes long and is a sort of love letter to her son, interspersed with recordings of the two talking with dramatic music. "Cry Your Heart Out" has some odd vocal effects and a jazzy riff that start the song and the rest of the song shows Adele indulging in her more lachrymose tendencies. "Oh My God," the second single from the album, shows Adele frustrated with the struggles of her personal life and relationships. "Can I Get It?" has a stomping beat that reflects the pounding heart of Adele seeking love. "I Drink Wine" reflects Adele's commitment to problem drinking and is another song more than six minutes long that sounds like something suited to Adult R&B and ends with a more spoken word from the artist. "All Night Parking Interlude (with Erroll Garner)" is a jazzy interlude that shows Adele's interest in her relationship. "Woman Like Me" is five minutes long and shows Adele's schizoid approach to a relationship, wanting to be with someone but feeling they are driving her away at the same time. "Hold On" is another six minute long song that reflects Adele's inability to learn from the mistakes of her relationships to rise above the cycle of chaos. "To Be Loved" is more than six and a half minutes long and it is another austere piano ballad expressing Adele's longing to be loved. The album then closes with another song that is more than six and a half minutes long in "Love Is A Game," which at least has some classy strings to go along with Adele upbraiding herself for her problems with love and relationships.
In many ways this album is a punishing test of endurance, which seems to be a pattern of some recent releases at least. This album is generally good, if you have a fondness for glacially paced and austere ballads about relationship melodrama. If not, this is not going to be a fun listen. There are only a few upbeat songs that break the agonizing pace of this album where twelve songs--one of them a two-minute interlude--take up almost a full hour of music, mostly without exciting production to liven up the mood. It is perhaps unsurprising that the two most upbeat songs on the album have been released as singles and the other more upbeat songs are likely to be the other singles if the era goes on for the rest of 2022. As pleasant as Adele is to listen to, there are some elements of this album that are somewhat frustrating--such as her decision to include conversations between her and her son on a song that tries to absolve her of blame for her terrible decisions in raising him as a single mother of limited insights into love and relationships. One would think that someone who sings as much about love as Adele does, she would know a little bit more about it. How many more albums of Adele spinning her wheels and not growing at all are we going to be asked to sit through?
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Jan 17, 2022 18:19:25 GMT -5
Living Eyes, by the Bee Gees
Perhaps the most obscure album of the peak-era Bee Gees, this album was released in 1981, after disco was clearly in terminal decline, and a lot of people were just not interested in listening to a new Bee Gees album. That has never particularly deterred me as a listener, though, so does this mysterious and obscure album provide the same sort of enjoyable experience as the other half-dozen late era Bee Gees albums and other compilations that we have examined in our tour of the discography of the Brothers Gibb so far? Let us examine this forgotten album and see what it sounds like more than forty years later.
Living Eyes begins with the title track, which is a beautiful song with ominous instrumentals and gorgeous harmonies about feeling as if time and love have passed one by. "He's A Liar" follows with another ominous song about people who traffic in deception in their efforts of seduction with some combative vocals and great music. "Paradise," perhaps the most popular song on this album these days, is a downtempo and somewhat gloomy song about the false promises people make to lovers. "Don't Fall In Love With Me" is a downbeat and melancholy song about the despondency of the narrator, and a gorgeous song for all that. "Soldiers" is a song that discusses fighting on against despair without hope, with a gorgeous falsetto lead vocal. "I Still Love You" sounds like an outtake from Spirits Having Flown, with a gorgeous lead from Robin, with its desire to restart a relationship that has been broken or troubled. "Wildflower" is a gentle acoustic rock song that seeks to find comfort in creation and the chance of a budding relationship. "Nothing Could Be Good" is a smooth rock song that seeks to overcome the sadness of being with someone that one loves. "Cryin' Every Day" is a melancholy and brooding song about sadness over difficulties in love and life but filled with beautiful music and harmonies, as per usual. "Be Who You Are" is filled with lush and beautiful strings and a message of honesty and transparency.
What were the Bee Gees thinking and feeling when they made this album? This is not an album that revels in disco cliches that were becoming out of date by the early 1980's. As is generally the case with Bee Gees albums, there is a lot of attention being made to the sounds of the time, including soft rock and more ominous and dark instrumentals of the kind that were popular in contemporary acts like Golden Earring. This is by no means a happy album--most of the songs in this album reveal deep unhappiness with relationships as well as with the mood of the times, and the growing resentment of disco and the hostility towards them as standard bearers of that age of music likely contributed to their darkening mood. This is a beautiful album, though, if your taste in music tends towards the melancholy, and if you are fond of their later period of songs (I am), you will find much to appreciate here as well.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Jan 18, 2022 16:16:34 GMT -5
You Want It You Got It, by Bryan Adams
When he received a bit of fame at the tail end of the disco period with a dance remix of his early track "Let Me Take You Dancing," Bryan Adams was quite correctly afraid of being typecast as a dance act when he most definitely was a straight-head rock act. That defensiveness colored his efforts on his early albums to prove his rock bona fides, to the extent that he wanted originally to title this album "Bryan Adams Hasn't Heard Of You Either," which I personally find to be an amazing sort of name for an album. Although this album was not a massive pop smash, this album is where the Bryan Adams experience for many rock listeners begins and so it is well worth covering in our look at the discography of one of rock's most underestimated artists.
The album begins with "Lonely Nights," which is a gorgeous song about the desire to avoid loneliness. "One Good Reason" features something other than a usual Bryan Adams voice on the lead vocals. "Don't Look Now" shows Bryan Adams on the comeback trail with a sound that would be pretty familiar to his listeners. "Coming Home" is a surprisingly touching early example of a romantic ballad to a devoted partner. "Fits Ya Good" is a driving song about the struggle of dealing with people who refuse to think positively in their lives, and was a later release on his Unplugged album that I first heard there. "Jealousy" shows Bryan Adams struggling with his titular feelings that take control of him when he is dealing with a romantic problem. "Tonight" is a somewhat fierce call to leave aside an unprofitable argument with a partner that isn't going anywhere. The title track "You Want It You Got It" has rather creative and interesting instrumentation and lyrics that show Adams' characteristically schizoid approach to love and relationships. "Last Chance" shows a surprisingly unromantic take at someone offering a last chance to someone who has had a tough night at the bar along with a great 80's sax solo. "No One Makes It Right" is a lovely piano ballad that manages to point to the cliches of love while also striving to honor them.
This is admittedly one of the more obscure Bryan Adams albums in his body of work, and as his breakthrough album in America it is obvious that the standouts "Lonely Nights" and "Fits Ya Good" deserve to be remembered fondly from this collection. For those who are fond of the career of Bryan Adams as a whole as I am, though, there are quite a few moments in this album that are worthy of listening to and enjoying, including romantic tracks like "Coming Home" and "No One Makes It Right" as well as tracks like "One Good Reason" and "You Want It You Got It," and even the more unsympathetic looks at Bryan Adams as a narrator like "Last Chance" and "Jealousy" that show some struggling with honesty about less than praiseworthy aspects of his character. Not everyone is going to be a fan of this album, but this is a real neglected gem of an album that shows Bryan Adams working on music out of a love of music and a real sense of honesty and sincerity about his craft, and that is well worthy of appreciation.
|
|