Only Solitaire: G. Starostin's Record Reviews, Reloaded c intro Notes
Download 1.07 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Thoroughbred
- Simple Things
- Welcome Home
- LIVE AT THE Y.M.C.A. (1980)
THOROUGHBRED (1975) 1) So Many Ways; 2) Daughter Of Light; 3) High Out Of Time; 4) Only Love Is Real; 5) There's A Space Between Us; 6) I'd Like To Know You Better; 7) We All Have To Be Alone; 8) Ambrosia; 9) Still Here Thinking Of You; 10) It's Gonna Work Out Fine. The end of an era: Carole's last album for Ode Records, last album produced by Lou Adler and the last one to reflect precisely the same old, sunnily conservative production stylistics, associated with Carole's house band (Kortchmar et al.), as well as Crosby & Nash (both of whom appear here as background vocalists), James Taylor (who also appears here as background vocalist), and riding a thoroughbred horse on the beach without a care in the world. Which does not mean that there actually were no cares in the world — husband Charles Larkey, woe and alas, is no longer credited as the resident bass player (replaced by Leland Sklar), because of domestic troubles that were tearing the house apart. Instead, however, of going the easy way and converting domestic problems into tempestuous art, Carole went the hard way and preferred to make another sunny album — this was, after all, what the people expected of her. And now that she was no longer bound by the catchiness parameter (grown-ups can stand hookless, after all — you can't fool the kids, but you can work your way around the grown-ups), the result, once again, is disappointing. There is virtually nothing about Thoroughbred, bar Carole's usual ability to come across as friendly and likeable, to make it stand out — like Rhymes & Reasons, this is just an okay collection of mediocre ballads and smooth, formulaic pop-rockers. "So many ways, so many ways to show you love someone" — a promising start, perhaps, but just one question: where are these many ways? The only way I hear is a piano ballad that rides the same chords we have already heard a hundred times, and the worst way possible to present it, when the transition from verse to chorus is marked only by a surge in volume, nothing else. And even worse than that, there are signs of fakery aboard: on the closing number, ʽIt's Gonna Work Out Fineʼ, she sings: "We've been hurting each other through a hard time / And it's a mighty good feeling to know it's gonna work out fine" — the entire song rings as untrue as the combination of these two lines: if you've really been hurting each other, how the heck do you even begin to get the feeling that "it's gonna work out fine" (and it really won't)? She tries hard — yes, she even delays the resolution of the second line, turning it into a climactic outburst, with some heavy artillery thrown in in the form of an uplifting brass riff. It does not help: the song is formally positive, but hardly the strong uplifting jolt that is needed to convince the listener. Of all the songs here, I can vouch safely only for one — ʽAmbrosiaʼ, with lyrics by Dave Palmer, has a certain stately majesty, coupled with melancholy and nostalgia. There's nothing particularly outstanding about its melody, but there's a sort of mix between gospel-soul and country-pop here that tugs at heartstrings which none of the other songs manage to irritate. Repeated listens show that the whole thing is not hopeless (there are at least some attempts to produce memorable pop phrasing on numbers like ʽDaughter Of Lightʼ and ʽWe All Have To Be Aloneʼ), but most likely, by the time you get used to the very subtle nuances that distinguish these tunes from one another, you will already have completely lost interest. Yes, ʽHigh Out Of Timeʼ does sound a lot like Crosby & Nash, not the least because Crosby & Nash sing background vocals, but in basic musical terms this is a non-entity — like a deconstructed ʽLong And Winding Roadʼ, devoid of its genius musical decisions and turned into slow background balladry muzak. And it's even more painful to listen to something like ʽOnly Love Is Realʼ start out with almost the same melody and atmosphere as ʽIt's Too Lateʼ, only to realize a few bars later that it has none of that awesome contrast between the ominous verse and the angry-sad chorus. In short, while not an embarrassing disaster, Thoroughbred is a serious disappointment after the previous two records: Wrap Around Joy had given us a promising transformation into a jazz-pop hookmeister (even with a few glam elements thrown in for good measure), Really Rosie proved once and for all that «inborn pop instinct» is a reality that requires at least a lobotomy to go away completely, but with this album, she once again tried to put «substance» before «form», and, honestly, Carole King is not the deepest or the most unusual thinking artist in existence, so her falling back on the thrice recycled formula of Tapestry was doomed from the start. The album did chart for a while, but the formula had clearly run out of gas, as, for that matter, did almost the entire sunny Californian style by the end of 1975. And even if the record is still much better than Carole's post-Ode output on the average, I do not see myself revisiting it any time in the future — cut out ʽAmbrosiaʼ, perhaps, and leave the rest of this «thoroughbred»'s carcass to the dogs, with a decisive thumbs down. SIMPLE THINGS (1977) 1) Simple Things; 2) Hold On; 3) In The Name Of Love; 4) Labyrinth; 5) You're The One; 6) Hard Rock Cafe; 7) Time Alone; 8) God Only Knows; 9) To Know That I Love You; 10) One. The start of an era: Carole's first album for Avatar Records, with a completely new team of musicians and a seriously different sound, even if, from the very first track, it is quite obvious that most of the change has been external and superficial. Her voice and piano, fortunately, are still at the core of the sound, but on the whole, the arrangements become tougher and more electric: strings and horns are still in, but acoustic guitars are mostly out, largely because of Carole's new partner, Rick Evers, who sort of steered her in a slightly heavier direction. Critical reception for Simple Things was frigid at best: common consensus seemed to imply that Carole King had become a stubborn dinosaur, refusing to evolve and adapt to the times — allegedly, Rolling Stone dubbed it «the worst album of 1977» (with Kansas and Uriah Heep still on the prowl? you sure ain't no gentleman, Mr. Wenner!), and the bad reputation still persists, seeing as how all of Carole King's pre-Avatar record catalog still remains in print, whereas some of those later albums seem to have never even been released in CD format. Indeed, like most of the American soft-rockers of the first half of the decade, Carole was in trouble — it would have been very hard to imagine her as a disco dancer, let alone a punk rocker, and her natural shyness and reclusiveness was becoming less and less convenient in an epoch that was placing more and more emphasis on flashiness and visual imagery. In a way, it is quite amazing that she still had enough credit left for the album to go gold, by pure inertia... ...especially if you also take into consideration the arch-ridiculous decision to take the worst track off it and release it as a single. See, not only does Carole King have no business writing a track called ʽHard Rock Cafeʼ — a bit like seeing Judas Priest at the local Renaissance Fair — but even if it is just business and she was paid by the Hard Rock Cafe for promotion or something, why write and arrange it like a friggin' mariachi band number? All of a sudden, in the middle of this still very personal and intimate bunch of ballads and soft-rockers, you get the artificially «happy» and utterly generic atmosphere of a banal carnival. As a corny B-side outtake or a publicity jingle, it would be okay, but as the first public announcement of The New Carole King, it was a highly predictable embarrassment, a serious lapse of taste that could only alienate the critical community — most of the members of which were far too busy in 1977, anyway, to listen to a new Carole King album from top to bottom. Which is too bad, since there are at least some good songs here, and overall, I would consider it a significant improvement over the consistent mediocrity of Thoroughbred — on the first go, at least, the change of creative environment did Carole some good. First and foremost, we gotta give some credit to the guitar players — particularly Robert McEntee and Mark Hallman (I am not sure how much credit should be actually given to Rick Evers, who is co-credited on three songs with Carole and also listed as a guitar player). On two of the album's most uptempo numbers, the guitars kick up a real storm. ʽYou're The Oneʼ is a dark and melancholic song, a little reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac's ʽYou Make Loving Funʼ in terms of tempo, basic rhythmic structure, and the impact that the sharp, intrusive guitar licks make on the rest of the song — but this one's more disturbing and, at times, even more desperate, in strange contrast with Carole's former peace of mind. The other number is ʽGod Only Knowsʼ — not a cover of the Beach Boys song, but a completely different and, this time, bouncy and uplifting song, with a ʽRunawayʼ-ish "I wonder..." hook. Both songs are decent as far as composing goes, but the real reason I am singling them out is that both are extended with an unusually long (for Carole) coda, where the guitarists are given complete freedom, and they are not afraid to use it. On ʽYou're The Oneʼ, the two players battle each other, contrasting a sharp, shrill tone with one muffled by a talkbox effect; and on ʽGod Only Knowsʼ, one of the soloists (no idea who exactly) delivers a fluent, super-melodic blues-pop solo that Dickey Betts might have envied. Really, this marks a first — never before did Carole allow her supporting players to carry on with their guitar solos for so long, and she couldn't have chosen a better opportunity to start: the electric guitar on both these songs is as perfect a companion for her and her piano as the sax solo was on ʽJazzmanʼ. As for the less guitar-dependent songs, I'd say that the title track is quite lovely, despite the unnecessary overreliance on synthesizers, and gets its programmatic message ("simple things mean a lot to me") across quite convincingly. Little else stands out (although, other than the abysmal ʽHard Rock Cafeʼ, little else is openly irritating), until she gets to the very end and delivers one of the most ambitious songs she ever wrote: ʽOneʼ is a micro-macro-cosmic anthem that somehow manages, over a measly five minutes, to touch upon everything, using the magic number as a starting point — a song about being "one" as a person, as a family unit, and as "one" with the universe, and about all the emotions that go with it, from joy and amazement to bewilderment and confusion (the pertinent refrain is "what am I gonna do?... what am I gonna do?..") Perhaps it is far from her best in sheer melodic terms (although I really like the structural games she plays with the bridge section, going from super-quiet "I am one" to super-loud "WE ARE ONE!"), but it really pays off to see her combine deep personal honesty and vulnerability with sonic bombast in this manner, and in any case, it's a fresh approach to finalizing the album, after three nice, but generic-predictable straightforwardly optimistic codas in a row — this time, the ending is more ambiguous and intriguing. Bottomline is, the critics were wrong: in a world that does not necessarily expect each and every one of its master songwriters to adapt to new trends, but allows them to follow their own path of spiritual and artistic evolution, Simple Things should have been as welcome as any other B-level Carole King album, and it does have more high points than either Rhymes & Reasons or Thoroughbred, to name but a couple of truly middle-of-the-road albums for her. I am not sure that three very good songs (two of them mostly because of the guitar work), one awful song, and 5-6 unremarkable tunes are really worthy of a thumbs up, but don't let me discourage you from trying the record out anyway — if you see it in a corner, give it a spin, just to be assured that as late as 1977, Carole King did not betray and abandon her muse, even if she still left her going around somewhat underfed and unwashed behind the ears. WELCOME HOME (1978) 1) Main Street Saturday Night; 2) Sun Bird; 3) Venusian Diamond; 4) Changes; 5) Morning Sun; 6) Disco Tech; 7) Wings Of Love; 8) Ride The Music; 9) Everybody's Got The Spirit; 10) Welcome Home. Okay, now this is an album that can hardly be saved by even the most objective and unprejudiced analysis. Even if it was produced by pretty much the same team (including the same couple of guitarists, although husband Rick Evers is only credited for cowbell this time — given his drug problems, this somehow does not look surprising), Welcome Home seems to take everything about Simple Things that was problematic (weak hooks, banal lyrics, generally unimaginative arrangements), discard everything that was good (such as classy guitar solos and progressive ambition on songs like ʽOneʼ), and throw in a few additional problems — most importantly, copycatting, as Carole now seems almost resigned to «follow where you lead», even if that makes her sound like a laughable third-rate imitator at times. Clearly the greatest embarrassment, and one of the worst ever experiences in King's catalog, is ʽDisco Techʼ — the title alone should be enough to die on the spot from an overdose of bad taste, but, yes indeed, this is Carole King going disco, heavily laying on all the clichés of the genre. Considering that Carole King and funk are about as compatible as Shostakovich and hip-hop, lyrics with lines like "rhythm is our way of communication, you won't ever want to take a vacation" (Mike Love, eat your heart out!), and especially "Disco Tech — let me be your teacher!" (no thank you), simply point out the sad fact that, as generally lovable and talented Carole King is as a human being and an artist, she is a bit lacking in the basic intelligence department: even in the sweaty disco climate of 1978, with everybody losing their heads and all, this song could not pass even the lower rungs of the quality test for Whiteboy (Whitegirl) Disco Fodder. And, unfortunately, that ain't all. On a less overtly embarrassing, but still highly disappointing note, a song like ʽEverybody's Got The Spiritʼ seems clearly copped from Fleetwood Mac's ʽDon't Stopʼ, from the basic rhythm pattern to the fade-in build-up of the introduction to the friendly anthemic chorus — except that it is much weaker in every respect, be it the lyrics, the thin arrangement, the lack of energy, and a complete misunderstanding of the ascending melodic pattern that made ʽDon't Stopʼ so great, as it captured the listener's spirit and pulled it upwards along the melodic stairway. In the place of the invigorating "don't stop thinking about tomorrow", we here have "everybody's got the spirit, yeah you know what I mean" (do we?), delivered in such a way that it seems clear that the only person who's really got the spirit is Carole herself, and even she might be just faking it, too. Other «highlights» include ʽVenusian Diamondʼ, an oddly «psychedelic» song with Vocoder-treated vocals, circa-1966-Beatles vocal harmonies, two sections that make a transition from slow, lazy, Lennonesque psychedelia to bouncy McCartney-style pop, and sitars a-plenty — the best thing about the song is that it at least does not try to adapt to contemporary trends, and is not as openly annoying as the previously listed two, but it does show that retro psychedelia is no more Carole's forte as is disco music; and two ballad collaborations with Rick Evers — ʽSun Birdʼ (is this, too, inspired by Fleetwood Mac's ʽSongbirdʼ, by any chance?) and ʽWings Of Loveʼ, featuring some of the most inane lyrics of Carole's entire career ("You fill me with love I can give / You fill me with life I can live / You fill me with song I can sing / And truth that makes the kingdom ring" — did they make a journey through time to the 21st century to have a computer write that for them?). Ultimately, the only song here that rises half an inch above mediocrity would be the album opener ʽMain Street Saturday Nightʼ, a simple pop-rocker with the only example of good lead guitar work on the album and a tiny bit of vocal grit that sounds authentic. Other than that, just about everything is a heavy letdown, and it honestly seems that with Simple Things, Carole was on a positive roll, but less than one year later, she was once again in full turbulence, probably more busy with her (once again) deteriorating family life than with making good music: unlike the aforementioned Fleetwood Mac, who could find artistic inspiration in their troubles by pulling them out in public and perversely feasting on them, Carole always seemed to value her social role of Good Mood Muse, stubbornly stuffing her problems inside of her or only vaguely hinting at them in the good-time melodies she wrote — and with Welcome Home, it feels quite strongly that she is not being honest with us at all, producing insincere, underwritten fodder with no direction whatsoever. Is it any wonder, then, that where Simple Things still went to No. 17 on the charts, Welcome Home did not even make it into the top hundred? No wonder at all. At least with such weak records as Rhymes & Reasons and Thoroughbred, we could hardly doubt the sincerity of the writer's motives: Welcome Home is the first genuinely rotten artifact in the writer's history, reason enough for a rather vicious thumbs down. Part 5. From Punk To Hair Metal (1976-1989) CABARET VOLTAIRE 
MIX-UP (1979) 1) Kirlian Photograph; 2) No Escape; 3) Fourth Shot; 4) Heaven And Hell; 5) Eyeless Sight; 6) Photophobia; 7) On Every Other Street; 8) Expect Nothing; 9) Capsules. It doesn't take much more than Cabaret Voltaire's debut album to understand why they are a band that is mentioned in every single account of the history of New Wave — and, at the same time, a band that people very, very rarely actually listen to. Like many of their contemporaries, they have fallen victim to the «why should I listen to this if it's not 1979 any more?» curse; unlike most of these contemporaries, they suffer from the curse even more strongly because at least other people would come up with melodies, and then clothe them in gimmicky electronic arrangements that sounded fascinating upon first listen, irritating upon second listen, and ridiculous upon the third one. Cabaret Voltaire did not bother coming up with melodies. I mean, you don't call yourself Cabaret Voltaire just to go on being a pop band, right? On the other hand, Cabaret Voltaire weren't about making experimental chaotic noise, either. From the very beginning, they respected the groove, so much so that, no matter how strange, all of Mix-Up is eminently danceable, and the best way to approach this material is to look at it as a sort of electronic-shamanistic ritual — exorcism muzak for the new age. It is no coincidence that the first track refers to the art of «Kirlian photography», a widespread practice in parapsychology and freak pseudoscience: had they formed in 1969, the band would probably worship Aleister Crowley, but in the post-Star Wars era, who'd want spiritual elevation without futurism, technophilia, and hissing tape loops? Ideologically, they take their cues from The Velvet Underground: rhythm is treated as merely a compromising measure that helps you ease into the repetitive, evil weirdness of the sound, even if guitars, pianos, and violins are largely replaced with even more cold, gray, and merciless electronic devices (although Richard H. Kirk's rough, droning guitar sound is usually an integral component). One important element of that ideology that is almost missing, though, is improvisation: most of these tracks are produced with a lot of overdubbing, and the atmosphere of spontaneity that was so important for classic VU is nowhere to be found. Another thing is «depersonalisation» — the entire album is completely faceless, dehumanized; again, this approach may have been all the rage in 1979, but today, when you turn towards the past in search of impressive faces, this seems to have a disheartening effect. Vocalist Stephen Mallinder does not have to resort to the antiquated practice of singing — he intones at best, and usually lays so much reverb and echo on his vocals that he ends up sounding like a semi-organic alien over a real bad radio transmission. Chris Watson's synthesizers hiss, hum, and rattle rather than vibrate in a musical fashion, and the guitars, as I already mentioned, are usually just there for a droning effect. At the same time, I would hesitate to call this «industrial» music, like many people do: it is certainly very different from the likes of both Einstürzende Neubauten and Throbbing Gristle, if only because relatively little importance is being attached to percussive effects (most of the drumming here is represented by fairly simplistic drum machine patterns), and also because the band's worship of the groove is stronger than their worship of the «factory hum» principle. But who cares about the words? Let's call this «industrial dance music», like a distant ancestor to Björk's ʽCvaldaʼ. Individual tracks are not worth commenting upon — other than, perhaps, the band's sci-fi cover of The Seeds' ʽNo Escapeʼ, on which the original garage rock guitar part is substituted for a «sci-fi garage» duet of hoarsely distorted guitar and synth. Again, though, its importance is more of a symbolic nature — with this song, they proclaim themselves as inheritors of the entire «caveman rock» tradition of the previous decade, except now they have more advanced technology to develop it (ironically, in 2015 that advanced technology sounds even more antiquated than The Seeds' crappily played/recorded electric guitars). Other than that, it is just one shrill, somber, nasty, dull-gray musical landscape after another, curious to look upon but not all that enchanting. Or scary, for that matter — Joy Division, with their suicidal vibe, were scary; Kraftwerk's ʽRobotsʼ, so vivid and complete in their technofascistic imagery, were scary; these guys, however, did not have a complete vision, they were just actively searching for one. Nevertheless, Mix-Up is not nearly as boring as this review would seem to picture it. Due to the band's relentless experimentation, there is a wide variety of tempos; the same groove never repeats itself twice; Kirk likes to drift from one guitar tone to another, and sometimes makes fairly amusing guitar noises (on ʽCapsulesʼ, for instance, his guitar tries to croak its way through the same frequencies as Mallinder's vocal «melody»); and even during the worst moments you can still toe-tap to the rhythms (only ʽPhotophobiaʼ loses it for a while). Repeated listens will bring out many subtle nuances as well. The biggest problem, in fact, is that the record really is much less experimental and innovative than it seems to proclaim itself — even in 1979, the only way people in Sheffield could be really stunned would be if they never previously heard Can's Tago Mago or anything by Faust. Which, I'm guessing, admittedly comprises the majority of the population of Sheffield — but then again, Cabaret Voltaire never really played for majorities, did they? LIVE AT THE Y.M.C.A. (1980) 1) Untitled; 2) On Every Other Street; 3) Nag, Nag, Nag; 4) The Set Up; 5) Expect Nothing; 6) Havoc; 7) Here She Comes Now; 8) No Escape; 9) Baader Meinhof. The Prince Of Wales Conference Centre YMCA, London, England must have been a pretty somber public location back in 1979 — this murky Cabaret Voltaire performance was recorded there, on a scrumpy cassette player, barely two months after both Joy Division and Throbbing Gristle had played some historically important shows there. But these were exciting times indeed, so that even the Young Men's Christian Association had no choice but to indirectly lend their support to artists providing strong doses of suicidal sounds to the general public. Or, if not suicidal, then at least those that appeal to the beast inside. The sound quality here is predictably appalling, and the whole experience looks and feels seriously bootleggish, despite counting as a thoroughly official release — but then again, you couldn't expect anything different from a band whose main point was to join the guitar and the synthesizer in an unholy union of eternal gray ugliness. At least this time around they are not attacked by their audience (which seems to have been a common thing in the early days of their career), who politely sit back, spend most of their time chatting about the final independence of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (well, probably not, but it was October 27, 1979), and sometimes respectably clap their hands when they think a certain song is over (meaning, of course, that fairly often they clap in the wrong place, or do not clap when they are supposed to clap). In the meantime, Mallinder, Watson, and Kirk are busy doing their thing, playing stuff from their most recent LP, from the less recent Extended Play EP, or from nowhere in particular, creating a sonic environment that goes best with black and white photography, lots of cigarette smoke, post-structuralism, and dull razor blades. Comparison with the studio equivalents shows that they stick fairly close to the grooves, atmospheres, and even to the subtle developments of the originals — but without the smallest amount of production gloss, these atmospheres sound even wilder, murkier, and nastier, especially Kirk's guitar tones, resonating more deeply and making use of all that extra distortion. Which is interesting, because it really puts these guys more in line with the underground / proto-punk scene of The Velvet Underground and The Stooges, after all, than in with subsequent generations of electronic artists. But then, they'd probably take offense if you called them electronic artists. Actually, there is even a whole new Velvet Underground cover here: ʽHere She Comes Nowʼ (originally recorded for Extended Play), which you could probably only recognize by the distinctly pronounced lines "ah, she looks so good, ah, she's made out of wood", since everything else is mutated and converted to the usual gray textures (distorted droning guitar, distorted white-noise-choked organ, deep trance-inducing vocals, simplistic-tribalistic drum machine, etc.). But even if it is changed beyond recognition in form, it totally retains the mean spirit — I'm sure Lou would appreciate. In fact, he'd probably dig this entire show more than anyone. They do also demonstrate, however, that they are not altogether above the art of the pop hook: not only do they do ʽNo Escapeʼ in all its primal Seeds glory, but there is at least one new song, ʽNag Nag Nagʼ, that also sounds like a modernized version of some old garage rocker, with a shrill, irritating, but catchy little keyboard riff that goes along with the appropriate "nag nag nag" chorus and an amusingly vivacious set of drum machine rolls. Somehow, the audience does not exactly latch on to this, and rewards the band with the usual flimsy applause at the end, but that's what you get after masking your rock'n'roll heart with an industrial sarcophagus for so long. Towards the end of the show, the arrogance gets out of control and the last track is ʽBaader Meinhofʼ, where they simply retransmit Red Army Faction messages to isolated blasts of feedback and electronic hoots and howls, get a final round of applause from all the young anti-Thatcherites in the audience, and retreat into their dim spider webs for some deserved rest. All in all, this is a somewhat fascinating piece of history, though I can hardly imagine a lot of people getting inspired by it today; but come to think of it, this re-grafting of decade-old garage rock values with the futuristic coldness of Krautrock may well have sounded as bizarre and mind-opening at the time as, say, Pink Floyd's experiments at the UFO Club circa 1966. But you'd probably still rather listen to a nicely produced copy of Piper these days than to a bootleg recording of any of the UFO sessions — and the same applies to this performance as well. Directory: music music -> Polish and Scottish modern music music -> How to Create a Student Recital Program music -> Arthur houle pianist music -> +44 When Your Heart Stops Beating 1 Giant Leap – 1 Giant Leap 1 Love 10 Years Of Israeli Trance music -> Music List Please Note : Latest Stuff At Bottom Of List albums a-z # music -> Introductory material must include the following music -> Cantus firmus: a few guidelines music -> Singing for action on climate change London 21 September 2014 Global People’s Climate March We are people from Raised Voices and other political choirs. For contact and information music -> Curriculum vitae daniel allen weymouth Download 1.07 Mb. Share with your friends:
|