Wednesday, March 28, 2012

"The Dream of the Blue Turtles" by Sting (1985)



View the Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.

Filed Between:
Rod Stewart and the Stoneman Family.


Fun Fact:
Eddy Grant AND Branford Marsalis play on this LP.  That's just cool.


Key Tracks:
If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, Love Is the Seventh Wave and Fortress around Your Heart are phenomenal songs.  We Work the Black Seam is sparse and beautiful and deep - especially to a Kentucky boy raised in coal country.  All of these songs take very "Police" sounds and broaden them.


Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
None, despite how it may sound on first listen.


My Overall Rating of the Track Separately:
Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)


NOTE: There will be NO discussion of the unabashed political overtones on this record.  However, there will be a lot of quotes because Sting has a better way with words than pretty much anybody but Shakespeare.  Here are some of my favorites (it's like a mini-Bartlett's):

  • "A beast in a gilded cage - that's all some people ever want to be."
  • "There's no such thing as a winnable war."
  • "I'm so confident I'm sane."
  • "We matter more than pounds and pence."
  • "You can't exchange a six-inch band for all the poisoned streams in Cumberland."
  • "Cancer lurks deep in the sweetest bud."
  • "History reeks of the wrongs we have done."
  • "To look for a Heaven is to live here in Hell."
  • "The brim of my hat hides the eyes of a beast."
  • "I must love what I destory and destroy the thing I love."
  • "I had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid."
  • "Let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm.  And let me set the battlement on fire."

In the liner notes (I'm a big fan of liner notes, in case you haven't noticed by now), Sting writes:
"Since I started this thing, people have constantly referred to it as my solo album, which of course is ridiculous.  It's as if I had done everything myself, well, I didn't.  The contribution and commitment of all those involved made it far less an indulgent and personal statement than a statement about how well people can work together without diluting or compromising ideas or ideals.  We also had a lot of fun."

And it shows. 
 
Even not-great tracks like Children's Crusade and Shadows in the Rain are fair enough, but they become downright transcendent when Branford slams down a solo.  It's the whole attitute of "Wait, what key is this in?" that starts Shadows in the Rain.  And the only answer Sting ever provides is, "Um..." as the songs revs into high gear.
 

Tracks like If You Love Somebody Set Them Free and Fortress around Your Heart are exactly the kind of songs you hoped Sting would deliver on his first solo album, though you dared not speak the thought aloud for fear of jinxing the situation.  Those songs established a very specific, post-Police, jazz-pop template that Sting would continue to pursue and find success with on "Nothing Like the Sun," "The Soul Cages" and "Ten Summoner's Tales."
 
But not the title track.  The Dream of the Blue Turtles is a frantic, synth-heavy, instrumenal, jazzish quasi-song.  However, it fits in perfectly with the rest of the tracks on the LP.  Which leads us to our ultimate question...
 

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Every song takes you somewhere.  It's all consistent thematically, lyrically and musically.
 

Up next, one of my top five favorite R&B songs EVER pops up on "Imagination" by Gladys Knight & the Pips.  In fact, it's the reason I bought the LP.  Here's a teaser for ya...  "L.A. proved too much for the man (too much for the man)."

Monday, March 26, 2012

"Private Eyes" by Hall & Oates (1981)



View the Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.

Fun Fact:
The liner notes list all the instruments Darryl Hall plays on this LP; one of them is "Computerythm."  C'mon, he just made that up, didn't he?

Filed Between:
The "Hair" soundtrack and Tom T. Hall.

Key Tracks:
Looking for a Good Sign is that patented style of R&B where H&O TCBI Can't Go for That (No Can Do) is a great song with a great sax solo.  Head above Water has a nice, Police-ish vibe.

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
Did It in a Minute and Your Imagination are the most obvious "obvious filler."  That list could get long here.  Mano a Mano.  Sigh.  That's the song written, composed and sung by John Oates and it confirms all those opinions that he's really just Darryl Hall's backup singer.  Need proof?  Here's the first vierse in its entirety:

  • Now I see a lot of people walking around and around.  Terra firma turned them upside down.  Too scared to reach out, maybe afraid of what they'll find - but a hand stuck in a pocket comes up empty every time.  Now you better believe the writing on the wall - all for one and one for all, woman to woman and man to man, face to face, heart to heart, hand to hand.

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Average (2/4 stars)

Before revisiting "Private Eyes," I had my soapbox all ready.  It was dusted off and I was about to climb up and open today's entry with the assertion that you have to love Hall & Oates if you're a fan of music.  But then I listened to it.  Like Hall says in Some Men, "we ain't soldiers, so don't you Generalize."

When I dropped the needle and the title track kicked it off (assuming you start with Side A, not Side One... ugh), I was kind of surprised.  Private Eyes is not a great song.  It's a good song - to be sure - but it's not the song I remember it being.  And so, the retinting effects of nostalgia make their first real appearance in Revisiting Vinyl.  That was when I started to get nervous.

But it pulls out of that potential tailspin with some full-on R&B in Looking for a Good Sign.  And then it gets even better when that R&B gets blended with the pop aspirations of the first track into I Can't Go for That (No Can Do).

And then it stops cold in its tracks.  Pretty much everything else on the record is forgettable and REALLY repetitive.  In fact, it seems rather odd that it ends up being that way, since they add elements of so many different genres: R&B, eighties pop, raggae, new wave, prog and even something I will refer to as synth jugband - often within the same song.  But almost every track ends with a pedestrian line or couplet repeated over and over like a mantra.  Sometimes, you'll think it's all finally winding down and then they tack on an extra chorus for no good reason other than to test your endurance.

So, is it an album?  No.  It seems clever and playful to have both a Side A and a Side One, but it really just serves to prove that you're not even sure how people should experience your art.  It's like hanging an abstract painting sideways in a gallery and nobody noticing.

Up next, "The Dream of the Blue Turtles" by Sting.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

"More of the Monkees" by The Monkees (1967)



View the Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.

Filed between: Eddie Money and The Moody Blues.

Fun Fact: You can tell this record was manufactured before 1970 by its thickness.

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately: HIGHLY Recommended.  Of course, the rating doesn't matter when you have nostalgia.

CONTEXT ALERT!  My mom LOVES The Monkees.  I just assumed they were an integral part of everyone's life when I was growing up, like they were for me, so I have some long-standing predispositions here.  When I was ten, MTV and Nickelodeon ran a contest where the winner got to meet The Monkees.  Mom filled out and submitted a thousand note card entries before she realized that it was a kids-only contest.  Then she submitted 500 more entries in my name.  I didn't win the grand prize (the little girl who did just sat there and wouldn't talk to anybody - not even Micky), but I won first prize - every Monkees LP ever on vinyl.  Thinking back, those were my first real vinyl records - not counting releases by Disney or The Chipmunks.  But those records were destroyed in a flood and now I work on replacing them all - even "Pool It!"  So, like I said, long-standing predispositions.

That being said, I'm going to go over most of the tracks on this LP one by one.

When the first weird guitar notes of She lit up my turntable, I was ten again - dancing around the living room and singing into an imaginary microphone just like my mom.  I am proud to say that I remembered every word this go around.

And the same was true with Mary, Mary.  I knew what song was playing from the opening maracas and backbeat.  Musically, you know you've got cred when Run DMC samples your song.

I HATED Your Auntie Grizelda when I was a kid, and I completely understand why.  Now, I'll put it up against about a fourth of the Beatles' catalogue. Off-and-on tune vocals, weird mouth noises for a solo and distorted guitar - that perfectly describes why I hated it then and I love it now.

(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone is angry and punky and awesome.  It's one of my absolute favorite Monkees' songs.  I want to get whiskey drunk and sing this song at a karaoke bar... and I don't sing karaoke.  If you like Gloria by Shadows of Knight, you should love this song.

I knew Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow) was a Neil Diamond song before I even looked it up.  It's a timeless pop song.  You find yourself singing along by the end, even if you've never heard it before.

The Kind of Girl I Could Love is just as poppy, and it gets auto alt cred because Mike sings it.

The Day We Fall in Love is a terrible riff on Donovan's Atlantis.  It's obious filler/teenybopper bait.

Sometime in the Morning is another great pop track - a Beach Boys/Beatles fusion.  It's also proof that Micky owns this LP.

Laugh is just kind of there.

I'm a Believer.  Let me say it again, I'm a Believer.  It's Micky checking in once more to close the record.  "Mmm...Whoa!... Aw."  If you don't love this version of this song, then you're either a communist or a lying, self-righteous hipster poser (I would choose the communist).  "Say I'm a believer, yeah yeah yeah yeah, I'm a believer!"

So, is it an album?  No.  Not at all.  It's a collection of great songs, but they're designed to be packaged as singles and it shows.  I love these songs, but they don't have anything to do with each other collectively.  They don't even pretend to try.

Up next, "Private Eyes" by Hall & Oates.

Monday, March 19, 2012

"Fragile" by Yes (1971)



View the Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.

Fun Fact: "Fragile" turns out to be an incredibly appropriate title.

Filed between: Frankie Yankovic and Neil Young.

Key Tracks: Round-About is pure, unabashed musicality.  If you haven't heard this one, you should check it out.  Heart of the Sunrise is good too.

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses: All of the solo songs (we'll get to this in a minute) - Cans and Brahms, We Have Heaven and The FishFive Per Cent of Nothing is the closest thing to a decent track on any of the solo outings, and even it sounds more like an etude than an actual song.  Mood for a Day also almost works, mostly because it sounds like a collaboration and was apparently taken from pieces of each band member's efforts.

My Overall Rating of the Tracks (Collaborations): Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

My Overall Rating of the Tracks (Solos): Don't bother.

Token prog rock lines on "Fragile":
-"The eagles' dancing wings create, as weather spins out of hand" - Round-About
"A snow storm, a stimulating voice of warmth of the sky of warmth when you die" - South Side of the Sky
"Hot colour melting the anger to stone" - Long Distance Run-Around
"Straight light moving and removing SHARPNESS of the coulur sun shine" - Heart of the Sunrise

Prog rock is all about the concept.  The liner notes of "Fragile" explain its concept.  They say, "Five tracks on this album (sic) are the individual ideas, personally arranged and organised, by the five members of the Band."

Basically, interwoven among the band collaborations are solo efforts - tracks where each band member (including the vocalist) gets a single track to overdub as many things as possible and create an interesting piece of music using only his instrument (mostly).  Yes gets high marks for the idea.  Unfortunately, the execution of those tracks is severely lacking and tends to devolve into pretentious self-eggrandizing on "Fragile."

Lets look at The Fish for example.  It's the bass guitar solo effort and bass is the only instrument that appears on the entire track.  And it falls completely flat.  It's weird and unintersting.  What's really odd about it is the fact that the bass is the most prominent, skillful instrument on all the collaborative tracks.  And really, all of the instruments work incredibly well when everyone's pulling together.  The various solos on Round-About and South Side of the Sky are amazing, but they only work with at least a semblance of context.

But I must stress again this this record is worth having for Round-About and the three other collaborative tracks.

So, is it an album?  No.  Not even the random, hidden-track reprise can tie it all together.  The idea of everyone literally doing his own thing pretty much cuts this one off at the ankles.  However, if the band had collaborated on more songs and jettisoned the "solo" concept, it would have worked really well.  The collaborations are certainly like-minded efforts, and the words in those songs fold back on themselves and their neighbors like a lyrical Mobius strip.

Up next, "More of the Monkees" by... well, duh... The Monkees.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

"Hi Infidelity" by REO Speedwagon (1980)



View the Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.

Filed between: Lou Reed and Charlie Rich

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
I am completely astounded and was not expecting what I am about to write at all.  REQUIRED LISTENING.  (4/4 stars.)  Seriously, if you haven't heard every song on this record, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

There is a such a great division of songwriting here between Cronin and Richrath here.  Even more amazing, there's is an unnerving consistency in what they write individually.  Here are some really great lyrics:

"He's got a long wick with a flame at both ends." - Don't Let Him Go
"You played dead, but you never bled.  Instead, you laid still in the grass all coiled up and hissing." - Keep on Loving You
"You hid behind your poison pen and pride." - In Your Letter
"She said they got brains all where they sit.  They think they're full of fire; she thinks they're full of shit." - Tough Guys
"Looks can't kill, but she certainly tries." - Shakin' It Loose
"I've got the time and I've got the place, I just wish you were there." - I Wish You Were There

Gary Richrath is a massively overlooked guitarist.  Here are few examples of some damn fine solos:
-Don't Let Him Go
-Follow My Heart
-Keep on Loving You
-Out of Season (the sleeper great track of the album IMO)
-Shakin' It Loose (the blues piano solo is also good on this one)
-Someone Tonight (even the bass player's song is good!)
-I Wish You Were There

My dad bought a truck in the mid-eighties and this cassette was in the glove box.  I didn't know the band or any of the songs at the time, but the album cover (along with Samantha on "Who's the Boss") pretty much initiated my puberty.  It just seemed... dirty.  Now, I think it's probably a rather literal interpretation of Take It on The Run.  I also still think it's really hot.

But my libido wasn't the only thing that "Hi Infidelity" kickstarted.  Some people think REO Speedwagon invented the power ballad with tracks like Keep on Loving You and Take It on the Run.  Those people are wrong.  Dream On  had been out a long time by then.  However, REO Speedwagon and Journey did elevate the artform for a whole lot of hair metal wussery.

Speaking of hair metal, "Hi Infidelity" really seems to set the tone and the bar for eighties rock - and hair metal LPs in general.  I think it's the superior blueprint for everything that followed in the next decade ("Permanent Vacation" included).  It basically establishes the format for an entire genre.  The whole exercise is arena-bait in a great way - Meat Loaf meets Motley Crue, with subtle synths that sway much more toward Whitesnake than Styx.  Granted, there's no cover song on "Hi Infi," but In Your Letter sounds like a cover of a fifties doo-wop standard.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  It's not just an album, it's a template for the next eleven years of rock 'n' roll.

Up next, "Fragile" by Yes.

Monday, March 12, 2012

"The Main Event" by Frank Sinatra (1974)



View the Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.

Filed between:
Simon & Garfunkel and Sir Mix-a-Lot.

Fun Fact:
Sinatra often mentioned the songwriter and arranger for his numbers.  That's classy.  It's also the mark of a true music fan - and Frank was a fan first and foremost.

Fun Fact #2:
Like most great live records, the tracks were recorded over several shows and stitched together.

Key Tracks:
Angel Eyes.  [Editor's note: the feedback comment and shushing were not included on the LP.]  Frank introduces this as a "saloon song."  It's the most powerful setup and delivery on the record.  It encapsulates everything that's great about Sinatra.  You Are the Sunshine of My Life works as well as Stevie Wonder's original, albeit in its own, very "Frank" way.  The House I Live In is a great summation of the man's complicated view of America - especially with the observations that bookend it.  Before closing with My Way, he announces, "we will now do the national anthem, but you needn't rise."  That pretty much sums it up.

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
Bad, Bad Leroy Brown is a swing-and-a-miss.  Sinatra the man probably inhabited a lot of the same space as that song.  But Sinatra the myth and Sinatra the voice were miles above it.  Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE Jim Croce, but this tune just wasn't a good match.  Time in a Bottle or Photographs and Memories would have worked a lot better.

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
HIGHLY Recommended (3.5/4 stars)

It's 1974, you're one of the biggest musical acts of all time, and you're playing to a packed house at Madison Square Garden.  How do you make an entrance?  Well, if you have the warm coolness of Frank Sinatra, you get Howard Cosell to introduce you like a heavyweight prizefighter over an instrumental medley of some of your best-known songs.  And it works incredibly well.

As the liner notes point out, "there's no Sinatra better than Sinatra in tuxedo."  And, as Frank himself was noted to observe, "when an invitation says black tie optional, it's always safer to wear black tie."  "The Main Event" is certainly a black tie affair.

Sinatra always sounds best when he has a crowd to feed on and banter with - whether he's talking about his grandkids or patriotism or scoring pot.  "I don't care how long you've been in the business, there's nothing like singing to live people, Baby."

Even here, on a slick, televised revue of his greatest hits recorded in front of twenty thousand people and broadcast to millions more, it still feels intimate and off-the-cuff.  And that was the genius of Frank Sinatra.  He could goose that crowd just the same as he could a few dozen at The Sands.  This is most evident on Angel Eyes.  The song becomes a one-on-one lament across a smoky bar.  The amazing thing is that it's one-on-one with everyone in the arena, everyone watching at home, and everyone listening on vinyl.  Not many artists can even come close to doing that.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  This recording is a time capsule.  It absolutely captures a specific emotional space in time - one of the greats at the top of his game.  With its setups and banter and spontaneous swells of excitement, the live recording contributes greatly to the overall album-ness of "The Main Event."

Up next, "Hi Infidelity" by REO Speedwagon.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

"1984" by Van Halen (1984)



View the Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.

Filed between: Frankie Valli and The Ventures.

Fun Fact: 
If you turn the volume way up and listen closely during the guitar solo in Top Jimmy, you can hear the sound of a shark being jumped.

Key Tracks:
Panama is a great song, even if it is a safe retread of lots of other VH tracks.  Hot for Teacher rekindles the band's interest in making music - even if it does seem to catch each member's interest in different places.

Obvious Filler and Swings-and-Misses:
There's always that one VH track that just didn't cook long enough.  Here, it's Girl Gone Bad.  That song is everything that's terrible about hair rock.  House of Pain leaves a good riff flailing in a sea of indifference.

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Average (2/4 stars)

"1984" is proof that phoning it in won't keep you from going ten times platinum.  And Van Halen is definitely phoning it in here.  Of course, this was their sixth studio album in six years (with the same producer).  That well has to run dry at some point.  I would argue that "1984" is the band at their least creative - even less than "Diver Down" which had more covers than originals.

It sounds like the guys are just roaming aimlessly around the studio and stumbling bass-ackwards into incredibly hokey hooky songs.  Other than the drum solo that kicks off side two, there is not one new sound or idea to be found here.  But that if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it mentality paid off in spades.  This is the record that has all the songs you know.  You know 'em so well that's it's pretty much impossible to listen to "1984" with any pretense of fresh ears.  The average person has heard Jump 413.7 times.  (Sports fans have heard it an average of 1,017.)  Panama and Hot for Teacher aren't far behind.  Rock radio fans have heard all of those plus Drop Dead Legs and I'll Wait ad nauseum.

And those are some good songs, but when you line 'em up and play 'em back to back, you can hear the absolute boredom of everyone involved in making them.  It's probably a good thing Dave left after this record or else the boys probably would have given up altogether and never done anything that sounded remotely interesting again.  Oh, wait...

So, is it an album?  No.  Nobody cares enough to decide if it's a prog record or a blues record or a hair metal record or a Dave-spoken-word record to ever try to put it all together.

Up next, we get our first live LP courtesy of the chairman of the board himself - "The Main Event Live" by Frank Sinatra.

Monday, March 5, 2012

"Growing up in Public" by Lou Reed (1980)



View the Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.

Filed between: Red Rider and R.E.O. Speedwagon.

Key Tracks:
Growing up in Public is a great song.  Standing on Ceremony and Think It Over aren't great, but they're at least listenable - and that's the bar for a key track this time around.  By the way, I know it's not Reed's fault since he came first by several decades, but the guitar part in Think It Over reminds me a lot of Creed.

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
Um... everything else.

My Overal Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Don't bother.

I had mentioned last time that I really hoped "Growing up in Public" wouldn't turn out to be another "Metal Machine Music" or "Lulu."

[sigh.]

It's not.  It's monumentally bad in it's own special way.  First of all, it's a pop record delivered with Reed's signature vocal stylings - i.e. the inability to carry a tune in a fifty gallon drum.  The next accessory to the vehicular manslaughter that is "Growing up in Public" is the lyrical content.  How do you go from writing songs about heroin and trannies to "how do you speak to the prettiest girl?"  Seems like an odd progression to me.

Reed tries his best to cram every nugget of seventies arena rock into this thing.  Matter of fact, most of the songs sound like they were rejects from Meat Loaf's "Dead Ringer" LP.  If you've heard "Dead Ringer," you know just how cruel a statement that is.  If you haven't, count yourself lucky. 

The truly sad thing is that Reed produced and played guitar too, and those parts work really well.  That's whay it's so frustrating.  Every bit of good will the music earns is dashed against the rocks by the vocals.  I think he should have let somebody else write the lyrics on this.  Maybe Warren Zevon.  That could have been really, really good.  "Growing up in public with your pants down" is a very Zevon-esque line.  More of that would have helped a lot. 

I also wish he would have let someone with more vocal talent sing here - Like Zevon or Elvis Costello or maybe even Johnny Rotten.  But Reed insists on singing and it's clear that he's happy with the result.  You can hear hear twinges of changes in his monotone delivery that show he's thinking about a certain style.  The Power of Positive Drinking is a "raggae" song and you can tell he listened to a couple Clash records before laying this one down.  On Teach the Gifted Children, he thinks he's gone gospel and would probably tell you it's a more soulful delivery than Bill Withers or Mavis Staples ever did.  But it's not.  It's all the exact one-trick-pony voice you always get with Reed.  "Growing up in Public" proves that it doesn't work for most types of songs.

Before I wrap up, I would like to call out two songs specifically for their auditory offenses - So Alone and Smiles.  Let's start with So Alone.  Fraught with paranoid lyrics about castration and group sex, this song has some terrible lines.  The two biggest cringers are the pick-up lines he uses: "you said you liked me for my mind, well I really like your behind" and "I don't blame you taking umbrage from animals looking at your cleavage."  Smiles just plain sucks.  I seriously thought the record was skipping because it just repeats the word "sick" or "slick" (I wasn't going to play it again to find out) for about 30-45 seconds for no apparent reason toward the end.  Then, Reed has the balls to close it out with "doot do doots" almost identical to the ones he used in Walk on the Wild Side.

If there is a silver lining to "Growing up in Public," it's that most of the songs are really short and now I don't have to wonder anymore about what could sound worse than the Bee Gee's "Sgt. Pepper" fiasco.

So, is it an album?  No, it's an ego trip.

Up next - are you expletive kidding me?!  "1984" by Van Halen?  Enough with the Van Halen!!!  I swear, at this point I feel like I'll end up having to review "A Different Kind of Truth" for Revisiting Vinyl.  I need a new random number generator.  Anybody got some extra ten-sided dice?