Only Solitaire blog
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keywords: description:Latest Music Reviews From George Starostin
1) Trouble / Guitar Man; 2) Medley: Lawdy MissClawdy / Baby What You Want Me To Do / Heartbreak Hotel / Hound Dog / All ShookUp / Canʼt Help Falling In Love / Jailhouse Rock / Love Me Tender; 3) WhereCould I Go But To The Lord? / Up Above My Head / Saved; 4) Blue Christmas / OneNight; 5) Memories; 6) Medley: Nothingville / Big Boss Man / Guitar Man / LittleEgypt / Trouble / Guitar Man; 7) If I Can Dream.
General verdict: The famous out of the frying pan and intothe fire Comeback Special like watching a paralyzed man trying to relearn towalk, with mixed success.
And here it is, folks The Comeback Special inall its glory, though the original LP, faithfully reproducing most of thematerial from the broadcast of December 3, 1968, certainly pales in scope nextto The Complete edition from 2008,with 4 CDs covering the entirety of the sessions for the special. Were I a bigfan of The Special, I would have certainly looked that one up. Unfortunately,Iʼm not, and never have been, and here is why.
There are clearly no doubts as to the fact thatthe Elvis Special was the first Elvis-related project in years which the Kingactually enjoyed or that it was a major turning point in his career, markingthe transition from a life dominated by movies to a life once again dominatedby live performances and regular studio recordings. One question, however,which I very rarely see thrown around, seems quite obvious to me: if thisprogram, and whatever steps followed it, are regarded as a comeback forElvis, then why the hell did this comeback last for just a few years? Why didit quickly evolve into a pompous Vegasy ritual for affluent middle-aged ladies?Why the drugs, the obesity, the deteriorating quality of both recorded materialand live performances? Was there really a comeback in the first place, or?...
Upon first glance, what the enthralledaudiences saw in that TV studio in mid-ʼ68 (and millions of people laterwitnessed during the broadcast) was a freshened up, rejuvenated, exhilarated Elvis,dressed in imposing black leather, surrounded by his trusty bandmates,thrusting his hips like there was no tomorrow, performing a smorgasbord of hisclassic hits, real rockʼnʼroll stuff, none of all that recent movie crap justlook at the track listing. A few gospel classics thrown in for good measure, agood old Christmas song, great ballads like ʽCanʼt Help Falling In Loveʼ andʽLove Me Tenderʼ. Scottie Moore himself back in top form and soloing likecrazy! Like itʼs 1957 all over again, or something like that.
Alas, it was all for naught in the long run. Ifyou want to see a real comeback well, maybe not a comeback per se, but a set of authentic, credible,exciting, relevant live performancesfrom the rockʼnʼroll pioneers, look no further than the Toronto RockʼnʼRollRevival festival from 1969, with Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Jerry LeeLewis performing next to younger and hipper artists (including some odd guycalled John Lennon, among others) and proudly holding their own ground, just doingtheir old thang and submitting themselves to the all-powerful God ofRockʼnʼRoll. Next to those fairly ferocious performances, the Elvis ComebackSpecial most certainly pales in comparison because it was, first and foremost,a SuperStar Show, a Celebration of Celebrity. Instead of being aboutrockʼnʼroll, it was all about King Elvis although the greatest irony of itall was that King Elvis himself mayhave very well thought that it was really all about rockʼnʼroll after all.
The very setting of the show a tiny lightedsquare grid, surrounded on all sides by adoring fans, within the space of whichthe King would be promenading his leather-clad hips ironically resembles alocked cage, with a captive, if not fully tamed, tiger walking from one end toanother and back again. The performances themselves are rowdy and spirited, butthe format is rather ridiculous: most of the songs are actually snippets, boundtogether in lengthy medleys, as if the aim of the show was to remind thepopulation of how many classic hits this wonderful man has had in his previouslife, rather than just let everybody have a good time. Even the leather, truthbe told, looks rather silly remember that in the Fifties Elvis had no needwhatsoever to borrow the rebellious Gene Vincent look in order to succeed, andit certainly has not become a naturallook for him in the next decade, either; no wonder that leather-clad Elvis soquickly gave way to the jumpsuit Elvis once he returned to live performingfulltime.
To be clear: in the context of the time, theComeback Special was a massivebreakthrough for Elvis and itʼs not like there isnʼt a lot of fun involved inlistening to this performance. When the King breaks into ʽHeartbreak Hotelʼ orʽHound Dogʼ, brief as those moments are, he must have felt as if he waspunching through a wall with each of these verses he delivers them with thegrotesquely overworked abandon of a starved man who doesnʼt really care if hedies on the spot from overeating, he just gonna do it, come hell or high water. When he half-accidentally,half-intentionally butchers stuff like ʽLove Me Tenderʼ or ʽOne Nightʼ withunfunny improvised lyrics, it is, too, the act of a drunken man on the night ofthe lifting of Prohibition. But then he starts rambling on the current state ofmusic ("I like a lot of the new groups, you know..."), or patting hisbandmates on the back, or going all spasmodic on the surrounding fans, and thisis where you are reminded that the Comeback Special is a show, first and foremost, and has much more to do with Elvisʼpersonality cult than with the spirit of rockʼnʼroll.
No better reminder of that than the opening andclosing sequences a burlesque medley of ʽTroubleʼ and ʽGuitar Manʼ in thebeginning, and a mini-musical about Elvis as a struggling artist at the end.The songs are all good, but the arrangements are predictably Vegas-ified (ohthose stupid, stupid, stupid brass howls in the intro to ʽGuitar Manʼ!), andthe emphasis is always on the King-Is-Back thing rather than the music. It isquite telling that they hired Steve Binder to direct it all the manpreviously known for directing theT.A.M.I. Show in 1964, way back when this glitzy stylistics was actuallycutting edge and did not take the proper attention away from the artistry(like, your eyes were probably stillglued to James Brown and the Rolling Stones rather than the vapid go-go girlsshaking it in the background). But what may have worked for all sorts ofaudiences in 1964 could only work for very specific types of audiences in 1968,when the cutting edge format would rather be describing something like The Rolling Stones RockʼnʼRoll Circusthan the Comeback Special.
Consequently, there are only three things Igenuinely like about it all. First, I like to see people happy, and Elvis herewas quite credibly happy, so I canʼt help but feel a little happy about him,too happy-sad, of course, realising that in the long run this was the firststep on the road that led him to even further humiliation and, ultimately, thegrave; but thereʼs something to be said and enjoyed about the short run aswell, after all. Second, being a big Scotty Moore fan, it is really great tosee him in close-up action on the stage (given how little footage of Elvis wehave from the Fifties and how it never ever focuses on his backing players),and, by the way, it is sad that the original album omitted what was possiblythe most touching and thrilling moment inside their little boxing ring theperformance of ʽThatʼs Alright, Mamaʼ by Elvis and his original band (minusBill Black, who passed away in 1965).
Third, the show and album conclude with ʽIf ICan Dreamʼ, the song that marks Elvisʼ transition into the gospel-soul businessand whose quality and passion, in my opinion, trump just about every singlemoment on From Elvis In Memphis perhapsbecause it was such a fresh take for the King at the moment: heʼd wrestled theright to sing the song from the Colonel, who did not think it suitable for hisprotegé (for a good reason what wouldmake the Colonel care about his artist singing MLK quotations instead of"old MacDonald had a farm"?), and he really gave it his all thereis an out-of-control tear in his voice here that you never heard before even onhis gospel recordings, let alone all the cute pop songs. If there is one singlemoment of complete honesty and genuine emotion here, ʽIf I Can Dreamʼ is it, and upon hearing it, you canactually understand what he meant when he said "Iʼm never going to singanother song I donʼt believe in" (even if I am really not sure that hetruly kept that promise).
In the end, it is absolutely no sin to enjoy Elvis ʼ68 and get caught up in theexcitement; it is simply important to realise that, while this was certainly animportant and glaringly obvious change in direction, the word comeback is nota very good one to describe the event not coincidentally, the word itselfmade its first appearance in the Colonelʼs discourse when, soon after the show,heʼd announced a comeback tour for Elvis. Sadly, a comeback to the valuesthat imbued and defined his classic years was really out of the question likedemanding the victim of a serious stroke to come back to his original stateof health. The good thing about it is that it managed to give us Elvis, thecredible soul singer, for a few years. The bad thing about it is that it reallyfailed to give us back Elvis, the intoxicating rockʼnʼroller.39commentsLabels:Elvis PresleyElvis Presley: SpeedwayELVIS PRESLEY: SPEEDWAY (1968)
1) Speedway; 2) There Ainʼt Nothing Like A Song;3) Your Time Hasnʼt Come Yet Baby; 4) Who Are You; 5) HeʼsYour Uncle Not Your Dad; 6) Let Yourself Go; 7) YourGroovy Self; 8) Five Sleepy Heads; 9) Western Union; 10) Mine; 11) GoinʼHome; 12) Suppose.
General verdict: Just another typical later-period Elvissoundtrack nothing to indicate that it would be his last, though if they hadthe good sense to involve Lee Hazlewood a bit more, I might even have regrettedthat.
Although Elvis starred in at least six moremovies after Clambake, Speedway would be the only one of theseand, consequently, the very last full-fledged Elvis soundtrack LP accompanyinga feature film (rather than a TV show or concert documentary). Doubtlessly,this had to do with plummeting sales with its miserable profits, the albumbecame the final nail in the coffin of the Elvis soundtrack album. Yet, onceagain, in the overall context of Elvisʼ Sixties output, it is nowhere near asboring and irrelevant as the 196566 stretch of embarrassments. Once again, weare dealing here with a bizarre mixed bag some nicely acceptable goodiesgoing hand-in-hand with true Kings of Corn.
The big deal about Speedway, the movie, was that it featured Nancy Sinatra as Elvisʼco-star; and while it would be unfair to all the truly great ladies of theSixties to regard Nancy Sinatra as a top tier artist for the decade, she had atleast two things going for her a touch of tough, edgy class and collaborationwith Lee Hazlewood. Both of these things work wonders for us with the inclusioninto the soundtrack of one song that has absolutely nothing to do with Elvis the Hazlewood-written slow country cabaret tune ʽYour Groovy Selfʼ, deliveredby Nancy in her fairly trademark half-empowered, half-stoned hazy drawl,oozing sardonic mid-Sixties cool in a way that would be totally unthinkable forElvis himself.
She does cross paths with Elvis on the JoyByers-written ʽThere Ainʼt Nothing Like A Songʼ, though written is a bit toostrong most of the time, Byers takes old classics and tweaks them in slightways, this one being no exception: it is really just an updated, overproducedtake on ʽKing Creoleʼ, but at least the tempo is fast, the drums are crashing,the guitar solo is tight, and Nancyʼs responses to the Kingʼs calls in thefinal verse add a touch of diversity; I could never say, though, that there isanything here even remotely recalling the kind of chemistry that Elvis had withAnn-Margret. Too bad with a bit more work, we could have gleefully enjoyed apair of hip boots walking all over the Kingʼs hillbilly chauvinist persona, butperhaps the song- and screenwriters were taking conscious effort at this pointso as not to humiliate their star beyond reasonable limits.
They did a decent enough job on the titletrack, another Vegas-rocker partially redeemed by some nice boogie piano and asemi-inspired vocal workout; ʽYour Time Hasnʼt Come Yet Babyʼ, a pleasantlyupbeat acoustic ballad written by team newcomer Joel Hirschhorn in a stylevaguely reminiscent of Elvisʼ late Fifties material like; and ʽLet YourselfGoʼ, another Joy Byers composition which is really just a Vegas-ization ofWillie Dixonʼs ʽLittle Babyʼ but thatʼs alright, weʼll take it for lack ofanything better.
On the downside, Ben Weisman and Sid Wayneoffer another fine, totally justified contribution for Elvisʼ Greatest Shit that one song with the unforgettable titleʽHeʼs Your Uncle, Not Your Dadʼ. Like any respectable, well-meaning,law-abiding citizen of this planet, I did not doubt for a second that this wasgoing to be a song about good old incest before putting it on so imagine mydisappointment when it turned out that the uncle in question was Uncle Sam,and that the song itself was an ironic parody on a patriotic military march.Honestly, what with the Kingʼs total inability to carry off anything ironic,sarcastic, or plain humorous, Iʼd probably have preferred the song to be a sincere patriotic march but thenagain, perhaps we could do without patriotic marching altogether? (It doesnʼthelp much if you actually watch the choreography in the movie, either themost pitiful thing in the world is trying to look funny without having thefirst idea of how to achieve a properly comedic effect).
Once again, the total number of new songs(seven) was barely enough to fill up one side of the LP, so they had to quicklyscrape together some leftovers unfortunately, three of them came from therotten factory of Bennett and Tepper, including ʽWestern Unionʼ from 1963 (yet another wretched attempt to recreate thesuccess of ʽReturn To Senderʼ, almost note-for-note) and the utterly genericlullaby ʽFive Sleepy Headsʼ. Only Joy Byersʼ ʽGoinʼ Homeʼ is worthy of a bit ofattention I cannot identify the exact folk / country source from which sheripped off that one (probably something by Johnny Cash), but at least the Kingsounds a bit more authentic and inspired on this one. Still, with even thebonus tracks now incapable to bring up the value of the finished product, it iseasy to see why Speedway marked thelong-awaited end of Elvisʼ soundtrack business: even the trusty corporatemafia were getting tired hacking out new material for the movies. For most ofhis subsequent movies, they would contribute 23 new songs on average, and itwas fairly clear that it no longer truly made any difference if Elvis were tosing anything in the movie or not. In fact, itʼs ridiculous that the machine still kept rolling on, by inertia, forat least half a year after the comeback special. But hey, at least we got tosee the man getting it on with Mary Tyler Moore in Change Of Habit.1 commentsLabels:Elvis Presley Tuesday, August 4, 2020 Elvis Presley: ClambakeELVIS PRESLEY: CLAMBAKE (1967)
1) Guitar Man; 2)Clambake; 3) WhoNeeds Money?; 4) A House That Has Everything; 5) Confidence; 6) Hey, Hey, Hey; 7) You Donʼt Know Me; 8) The GirlI Never Loved; 9) How Can You Lose What You Never Had; 10) Big Boss Man; 11) Singing Tree; 12) Just Call MeLonesome; 13) Hi-Heel Sneakers.
General verdict: Much of this clambake is inedible asusual, but fortunately for us, Elvisʼ movie songwriters are getting reallytired and lazy, leaving a few nice empty spots for good people to come and fillʼem up.
Everything written about Double Trouble applies equally well to Clambake, the soundtrack to a movie that could just as well be aculinary show, because, honestly, who cared at the time? As an album, Clambake is a roughly proportioned mixof horrible novelty numbers; derivative but listenable pop-rock fodder; and a few classics whose presence israndomized but not totally accidental, because every once in a while the manwould stick his head out of his shell and take a bite of juicy stuff beforebeing beaten back under cover with another batch of Bennett and Teppercompositions.
The obvious classic here is the very firsttrack (which wasnʼt even in the movie, and so much the better for it) Elvisʼcover of Jerry Reedʼs freshly released ʽGuitar Manʼ, with Jerry Reed in personmanning that acoustic guitar because, allegedly, nobody around Elvis couldproperly replicate Reedʼs finger-picking style. You could say that here wasanother little gem of a country-rock song stolen by Elvis from a lesser knownartist, but truth is, the song was perfect for Elvis: Reedʼs voice is that of acharismatic country trickster, while Elvis is a raging force of nature, and thefeeling of triumph over all the obstacles that life throws in your way is feltmuch more bluntly on the Elvis version. (It also boasts cleaner and subtlerproduction, but this is to be expected all of Elvisʼ Sixties records werepolished to perfection, so if you are rather after a bit of lo-fi rawness,stick to the original instead). In any case, the good news is that Elvis andReed really clicked on that session, and the result is another track that canproudly stand up to any randomly chosen Elvis classic from his golden years.
Other above-average material, also recorded topad out the scanty soundtrack, includes Jimmy (not Jerry) Reedʼs ʽBig Boss Manʼ, with Jerry (not Jimmy) Reed also manning the guitar and Charlie McCoy blowingthe harmonica all through the song, as if trying to gain supremacy over thelead vocal (sometimes he actually succeeds); and a couple of decent countryballads, such as ʽSinging Treeʼ and ʽYou Donʼt Know Meʼ, which Elvis sings withtotal conviction.
Unfortunately and predictably, the soundtrackmaterial is quite rotten in comparison the worst offenders being RandyStarrʼs vaudeville ditty ʽWho Needs Money?ʼ (a very stupid duet with Elvisʼco-star in the movie) and, of course,ʽConfidenceʼ, in many respects a spiritual successor to ʽOld MacDonaldʼ and anotherfully deserving entry on the famous compilation Elvisʼ Greatest Shit. As a Sesame Street number, it would have beenperfectly adequate; as something through which every loyal grown-up admirer ofthe King had to be put, itʼs humiliating torture. One only has to wonder if theman was forced to wear breeches and suspenders in the studio for extraauthenticity. And caned on the butt after each bad take.
Even Joy Byers is not fully up to task thistime; her ʽHey, Hey, Heyʼ, seemingly a rip-off of some old Motown dance numberthat I do not quite recognize, is way too old-fashioned for 1967 this kind ofstyle had gone out at least a year or two ago, together with the likes of Shindig. This leaves the title track asthe most modern number, with the obligatory distorted electric guitar lickand the glitzy-swaggy Tom Jones attitude but, of course, you canʼt do allthat much with a song whose chorus goes "mammaʼs little baby lovesclambake, clambake, mammaʼs little baby loves clambake too". Heck, itdoesnʼt even work as a gross sexual innuendo, unless you somehow find a way towork sausagefest in there too.
Still, on the whole it is once again amusingand intriguing to witness the ongoing battle of the soundtrack agenda withre-emerging artistic inclinations here is yet another record where Elvis issort of left to his own devices whenever there is empty space to be filled onthe chunk of vinyl, and one could argue that, paradoxically, it was preciselythis filler problem that ultimately aided Elvis in resuscitating and prolonginghis artistic life by a few years.3commentsLabels:Elvis PresleyFrank Black: Frank BlackFRANK BLACK: FRANK BLACK (1993)
1) Los Angeles; 2) I Heard Ramona Sing; 3) HangOn To Your Ego; 4) Fu Manchu; 5) Places Named After Numbers; 6) Czar; 7) OldBlack Dawning; 8) Ten Percenter; 9) Brackish Boy; 10) Two Spaces; 11) Tossed;12) Parry The Wind High, Low; 13) Adda Lee; 14) Every Time I Go Around Here;15) Donʼt Ya Rile ʼEm.
General verdict: A return to roots of sort for the twisted alienmind of a former Pixie, but without forgetting the twisted alien mind.
It may seem bizarre or controversial, but Iactually enjoy Frank Blackʼs self-titled solo debut slightly more than I feelfor Trompe Le Monde albeit onlyslightly, since something about Frankʼs individual vision had blocked his solocareer right from the start from ever overtaking the high points of Pixies.Nevertheless, there is that cherishedfeel of liberation and a new beginning about this record, the same one thatused to characterize the first records by solo Beatles and make themoutstanding in their own ways. It is pure intuition, of course, but somehow Trompe Le Monde, to me, has the feel ofan album they were forcing themselves to make, whereas Frank Black is very clearly an album that Frank Black wanted to make. Though, admittedly, why he wanted to make this kind of albumis an issue yet to be resolved.
From a purely musical standpoint, this isactually a very normal record. Despite the important presence of JoeySantiago to handle lead guitar duties, there is no attempt to somehow channelthe experimental spirit of classic Pixies for the most part, Frank writes hissolo material in a fairly conventional manner, and his main musical influencesseem to be the Beatles and the Ramones rather than Talking Heads or Pere Ubu orCaptain Beefheart, even despite the fact that his bass and keyboard player, aswell as producer, Eric Drew Feldman, had previously worked for both Pere Ubu and the good Captain. But conventionalneed not mean predictable or boring: most of the songs are madeinteresting, one way or another, by being injected with healthy doses ofFrankʼs uniquely weird personality.
The very first song is ʽLos Angelesʼ, whosecomplex structure, for some reason, reminds me of Radioheadʼs ʽParanoidAndroidʼ a similar mix of folk, psychedelia, and hard rock (well,straightforward grunge in Frankʼs case) imbued with an aura of I-donʼt-belong-heresadness, though Frank Black would never agree to wear his heart so openly onhis sleeve as Thom Yorke does: for Frank, being too vulnerable comes across aseither a sign of weakness or a sign of narcissism (choose one based on your ownideological alignment). Of course, ʽLos Angelesʼ is nowhere near as epic orcompositionally rich as ʽParanoid Androidʼ, but I still love its crazy shiftsof tone and tempo, its hilarious forays into old-school prog-rock territorywhen those synth fanfares roll out on the battlefield around 1:25 into thesong, or its back-of-your-mind falsetto vocals from the classic book ofpsychedelic pop. What is the song about? Well, he wants to live in Los Angeles,but not the one in Los Angeles. I mean, honestly who wouldnʼt?
Even before hearing the album, you wouldprobably be able to predict what it is going to be about: namely, building analternate variant of the universe for the artistic alter ego of CharlesThompson IV, formerly known under the sinister moniker of Black Francis but nowsimply Frank Black, ever since he managed to disentangle himself from the DarkSide. There will be songs about aliens, time travel, oceans, and ghosts; therewill be songs about strange and possibly quite meaningless things; and therewill even be an uptempo, almost techno cover of the original version of theBeach Boysʼ ʽI Know Thereʼs An Answerʼ ʽHang On To Your Egoʼ (which, notcoincidentally, had only recently been released for the first time on CD, so wecould probably tell Frank is a major PetSounds fan from this fact alone). Well, I guess one thing we could neveraccuse Frank Black of is not hanging on to his ego.
That said, if there is one single threadrunning through all or most of the songs on here, it is not Frankʼs ego as suchbut rather all the things that Frank loves tons of lyrical and musicalreferences to all sorts of pop culture elements, some of which would take agenuine connoisseur to notice, while others are more obvious. For instance,besides the Beatles and the Beach Boys, Frank obviously loves the Ramones, andso he decided to write a song about them, changing ʽRamonesʼ to ʽRamonaʼ sothat things wouldnʼt be that obvious andyouʼd be misled into thinking that maybe it has something to do with Dylanʼs ʽToRamonaʼ instead. Never mind that ʽI Heard Ramona Singʼ is played at aboutone-third the speed of a usual Ramona, uh, Ramones song: just speed it up andyou get yourself a modestly catchy pop-rock anthem filled with giddy teenadoration. I am not sure if Frankʼs "I hope if someone retires / They pullanother Menudo" bit of advice is really practical after all, the Ramonesdid outlive themselves by 1993, not to mention historyʼs cruel irony of all the original members dying beforethey got really old but if taken as a simple allegory for eternal youth, itʼsnothing to complain about.
Oddly enough, one of my favorite pieces on thealbum is the only song not to feature any vocals at all: ʽTossedʼ is a kick-asspiece of steady 4/4 power pop, with big strong muscular basslines, drumrhythms, and guitar interplay its best moment, however, is when the rhythm isjoined by equally muscular sax parts which carry a Beach Boys-like spirit andsomehow give the entire workout that special sunny Californian flair. This kindof material would be particularly appealing to all those who love BrianWilsonʼs pop hooks and melodicity but deplore their lack of kick-ass rockenergy of course, Frank Black is not Brian Wilson, and his melody skills arenowhere near the same league, but he has that great knack for marrying crunchand melody, and it is good to see that this is one thing that he hasnʼt lostone bit after divorcing the band.
Another of Frankʼs clear connections is DavidBowie ʽFu Manchuʼ, with its glam-rock brass arrangement, epic-soulful vocals,and half-mystical, half-comical pathos, sounds like something that would havenicely fit in on an album like DiamondDogs. The big difference is the voice: it might be an American vs. Britishthing or it might just have to do with an innate discrepancy between vocaltimbres, but Frank always struggles when it comes to convincingly represent anunknowable being from outer space. (One reason why ʽCactusʼ, in some ways,actually became a better song when David covered it on Heathen I sure wish heʼd developed an interest in ʽFu Manchuʼ aswell). On the other hand, Blackʼs preference for more simplistic, poppy,ska-like rhythmics of the ʽOb-La-Di Ob-La-Daʼ type gives his own brand of aliencomic-book mysticism this childlike charm that makes him particularly endearingwhere a David Bowie might come across as way too alienated and impenetrable. Toeach his own.
Like most Frank Black albums, this one worksbetter as a whole than on the level of individual songs thereʼs just too manyof those, and it is difficult to pick truly outstanding hooks and unforgettablehighlights because, for one thing, Blackʼs arrangements and chord patterns donot show that much diversity, and even his cute brass flourishes start becomingpredictable after a while. But there are still enough quirks to make the albumflow by without getting boring, and he manages to sign off on a suitably highand grandiose note ʽDonʼt Ya Rile ʼEmʼ, a song about the advantages ofnatural light over electricity (sort of), really manages to tie its melody tolyrics like "Iʼve been working my way back to sane / Itʼs coming back tome again / Old navigational ways / Back in time where I belong / Theyʼreplaying my favorite song". Adepts of constant progress might flinch atthis scrap of a nostalgic manifesto, but the truth about Frank Black is that it merely takes a small step away from theeccentric excesses of classic Pixies, and its normalization of the FrankBlack sound, along with all the artistic bows to his influences, does notprevent the music from expressing the Frank Black persona. Which is just theway some people like it myself included.1 commentsLabels:Pixies Frank BlackElvis Presley: Double Trouble
ELVIS PRESLEY: DOUBLE TROUBLE (1967)
1) Double Trouble; 2) Baby, If Youʼll Give MeAll Your Love; 3) Could I Fall In Love; 4) Long Legged Girl; 5) City By Night; 6) OldMacDonald; 7) I Love Only One Girl;8) There Is So Much World To See; 9) It Wonʼt Be Long; 10) Never Ending; 11) Blue River; 12) What Now, What Next, Where To.
General verdict: Passable glitzy pop-rock entertainment witha few serious lows almost a masterpiece compared to the depths plumbed acouple of years before.
Although this and the next few soundtracks artnot so great by any means, I believe that any honest evaluation of them asproper LPs should admit that they are nowhere near as bad as that entirestretch from 1965 to early 1966, pre-Spinout.Want it or not, times had forced theElvis team to adapt at least a little, and much of this material soundsrelatively passable for the early rock music era. With a new haircut, lightlyforeshadowing the comeback Elvis style; a new producer (Jeff Alexander, whohad previously composed the instrumental score to a few of his better movies,including Jailhouse Rock); and aslightly higher rate of solid songwriters than usual, Double Trouble is... well, still a disappointment, but not nearlyas much of a disappointment as it could have been under differentcircumstances.
I do believe that the many one-star ratings forthe LP generally have to do with the presence of ʽOld MacDonaldʼ. Ratherarrogantly credited to the infamous songwriting dentist Randy Starr becausesome of the old lyrics have been changed to make the song more edgy, it is,once again, something perfectly acceptable if it were spontaneously deliveredduring some drunken binge with Elvisʼ friends, but certainly not in the contextof an album promising healthy, wholesome entertainment, whatever that mightmean. The song proudly takes its place next to ʽPetunia, The GardenerʼsDaughterʼ, ʽQueenie Wahineʼs Papayaʼ, and other similar mega-embarrassments ofthe Kingʼs career and not, of course, due to the fact that Elvis chose toperform a generic nursery rhyme, but precisely because he chose to perform itas a pseudo-humorous adult take on a generic nursery rhyme, one of thosevaudeville travesties for which many, many grown-up persons have already beencondemned to eternal flames of Hell.
Oh, and, obviously, Double Trouble was the soundtrack to an actual movie, but this timearound, I forgot to look up the plot. Allegedly, itʼs a comedy-thriller witha slightly unusual plot for Elvis (the original script was written with JulieChristie rather than Elvis in mind!), so it might be worth a look for, I dunno,fans of the classic James Bond stylistics or something. Me, Iʼm just payingattention to that haircut.0commentsLabels:Elvis Presley Sunday, July 26, 2020 Pixies: Trompe Le MondePIXIES: TROMPE LE MONDE(1991)
1) Trompe Le Monde; 2) Planet Of Sound; 3) AlecEiffel; 4) The Sad Punk; 5) Head On; 6) U-Mass; 7) Palace Of The Brine; 8)Letter To Memphis; 9) Bird Dream Of The Olympus Mons; 10) Space (I Believe In);11) Subbacultcha; 12) Distance Equals Rate Times Time; 13) Lovely Day; 14)Motorway To Roswell; 15) The Navajo Know.
General verdict: The Pixies get themselves a solid rocking sound fortheir swan song, but oddly sacrifice the hooks in favor of somewhatold-fashioned power-pop energy.
I wish I could continue the analogy that wasdropped in the previous review and treat TrompeLe Monde as Pixiesʼ Abbey Road,but, in all honesty, this record is just a tad short of such a status. Perhapsa better analogy would be Pixiesʼ Let ItBe, since Trompe Le Monde, too,seems to be driven by one manʼs desire to move a little closer to the rootsand produce something a little more spontaneous, more wild, more rocking thanusual. This is unquestionably the bandʼs loudest, most abrazive album, one onwhich they end up sounding influenced by Cheap Trick far more often than theydo by Talking Heads; and while this is definitely not a problem in the largescheme of things after all, the Pixies are a fuckinʼ rock band, are they not? it does result in a certain lack ofsubtlety, and in the band occasionally slipping into the world of fairlygeneric rock clichés (at least, musical; message-wise, Trompe Le Monde is still as idiosyncratically Pixies-ish as it gets).
Arguably the main reason why Trompe Le Monde, good as it is, isstill the weakest Pixies album is that it is not too much of a Pixies album it is more of a Frank Black solo album with guest musicians Kim Deal and JoeySantiago. Kim has no compositions of her own here (not sure if she was blockedby Francis or if she simply was saving them all for future Breeders records),no lead vocals, relatively few backing vocals, and even her bass lines are oftenrelegated to purely supportive roles. And Joey, while still an essentialcontributor to the psychedelic textures of the music, has nowhere near as manymemorable lead parts as he used to. For the most part, this is a Frank Blackshow all the way his chugging rhythms, his weird vocal hooks, his twistedsense of humor, and his pissed-off attitude, of which we seem to be receiving amighty huge dose here. You never really saw the Pixies in such a jerky moodthroughout, believe me.
To try to understand what they were reallygoing for on this album, it might make sense to begin with a comparison oftheir unexpected cover of The Jesus And Mary Chainʼs ʽHead Onʼ with theoriginal. The most surprising thing is that although the cover postdates theoriginal by two years, it actually sounds retro-fied:the JAMC version, with its heavy echo on the vocals and the drums, isimmediately datable to the Eighties, while the Pixies here make it sound exactly like a Cheap Trick song circa1977-78, with those thick, glammy guitar tones, exuberantbarman-give-me-one-more-drink lead vocals, and awe-want-it-louder-than-everyone-else attitude. Could it be that a band whosepurpose once seemed to be to push classic pop-rock in a futuristic direction isnow showing signs of repentance, looking back at the old school glam-rock andpunk-rock of the mid-Seventies as a key reference point? And could thisnostalgic reinvention of a contemporary alt-rock hit be their flagmanstatement about it?
The thought hits harder when you combine itwith all that anger captured on the record anger clearly directed at noneother than a large chunk of the Pixiesʼ own core audiences. Two songs stand outparticularly in that respect, both of them well-known highlights of the album.One is, of course, ʽSubbacultchaʼ, an unusually straightforward (for Black)indictment of club culture as an excuse to find oneself a hot piece of ass and set, might I add, to a veryclearly retro melody, veryreminiscent of the Modern Loversʼ ʽPablo Picassoʼ, except that first-rateproduction allows each rhythm and lead note to cut even sharper than JonathanRichmanʼs band. The other one is ʽU-Massʼ, an even more vicious assault on thephoney varieties of progressive student subculture which Iʼm sure all their student audience musthave loved with the exact same abandon that the Ramonesʼ core audiencedisplayed while gleefully bopping along to ʽCretin Hopʼ and ʽTeenage Lobotomyʼ.The songʼs melody has been often compared to ʽSmells Like Teen Spiritʼ (itʼsfunny that Nevermind and Trompe Le Monde were released with onedayʼs difference), but Pixies donʼt do achingly desperate grunge they dodeeply sarcastic grunge, and they play it here in such a way that the guitarchords are just as reminiscent of AC/DC and ZZ Top as they are of their owncontemporary alt-rock scene.
None of this is to say that the Pixies havesomehow turned into some sort of conservative musical reactionaries overnight.The music on the whole, be it the production, or the inventive weavingtechniques between Black and Santiago, cannot be dismissed as a return to staleclichés; and the elements of vitriolic criticism against the bandʼs ownbreeding grounds still count as occasional blips among the usual sea of randomimpressionist imagery that covers territory all the way from the Eiffel Tower(ʽAlec Eiffelʼ) to Native American legends (ʽThe Navajo Knowsʼ). Whatever bethe case, it is not very likely that a band with such a history as the Pixiescould turn around and start churning out generic rockʼnʼroll. The biggestproblem is that by concentrating too much on rocking out and venting off, thePixies slightly lost their grip on their legendary ability to create instantlycaptivating pop hooks. Even after a whole bunch of listens to the album, mymind still tends to remember much ofit as a rather messy and monotonous sonic glop, instead of building a separatecozy cottage for each individual song.
Personally, I very much miss the stylisticdiversity of Bossanova there are,for instance, absolutely no moments of tender, subtle beauty of the ʽAnaʼ orʽHavalinaʼ type here; not a single song, in fact, that could be labeled as aballad. The closest they get to being a little romantic here is on ʽMotorwayTo Roswellʼ, a winding epic about an alien beingʼs tragic death in an accidentthat does not really deserve its five-minute length but even that one isultimately so loud and crunchy that even its nicely placed piano flourish inthe coda does not do much by way of reminding us of how tender Frank Black andthe boys can be when a certain muse grabs them by the spleen. Not here. Notthis time.
If you have not yet heard the album and theseseveral paragraphs happen to be discouraging you from checking it out, though,do not be discouraged just take a quick listen to the title track, since Ithink that those minute and forty seconds are perfectly representative of thealbum as a whole. Some thick, speedy, mammoth riffage; some flashy psychedelicguitar leads; some quirky changes in tempo; some cosmic lyrics delivered with theappropriate cosmic vocals. Itʼs a cool sound, and one that hasnʼt dated one bitin thirty years you still have indie kids doing this kind of music to thisvery day. But it hasnʼt really got much to latch on to, does it? No "myboneʼs got a little machine" or "debaser, debaser!" or even a "Caribo-o-o-u!"to it. Sadly, the same type of impression applies to a good half of the album.
That said, let me quickly list a few songswhich are right up there with the very best that Pixies ever put out. ʽAlec Eiffelʼis a modest masterpiece of speedy pop-rock, sounding like a future blueprintfor every fast Arcade Fire song ever made. ʽLovely Dayʼ takes the bass line of ʽYouCanʼt Hurry Loveʼ, gives it a little twist and briefly turns the Pixies into a darkside of Motown band. But where they really pull all the stops is on ʽSpace (I BelieveIn)ʼ, a one-of-a-kind mix of grunge, Goth, and psychedelic elements with themost brutally honest lyrics in the universe: "We needed something to moveand fill up the space / We needed something this always is just the case".As you can see, itʼs not about cosmicspace, itʼs all about filler space, andsomehow in this weird and wild universe the song that was most likely writtenon the spot to fill space ended up being the best number on the entire album. Howcan you ever forget "JEFREY WITH ONE 'F', JEFREY! JEFREY WITH ONE 'F',JEFREY!"? (Allegedly, the tablas guy who they got to play with them on thesong was actually called Jef Feldman, with one 'f').
Okay, that wasnʼt too many songs, but the truth is, while I actually enjoy most ofthe album, somehow numbers such as ʽLetter To Memphisʼ just do not stimulate meto come up with any brilliant ideas, if you know what I mean. Quite a fewpeople are ready to swear by Trompe Le Mondeas the crowning moment of glory forthe band, which stumps me is this because of all the loudness and distortion?Because the actual songwriting is rather lazy, to be honest. One commenter on MarkPrindleʼs old review site actually confessed to loving the album because it wasMEAN and UGLY where the previous ones were CUTE and CLEVER I think thisis a fairly appropriate description as far as minimalistic descriptions go, butmaybe the problem is that a lot of other bands can be MEAN and UGLY like the Pixies,but very, very few can be CUTE and CLEVER like the Pixies. Just about anybodycould come up with songs like ʽPlanet Of Soundʼ or ʽThe Sad Punkʼ (check outthe career of Art Brut, for instance), but who the heck could come up withanother ʽWave Of Mutilationʼ? Nobody has, so far.
As the final brick in the bandʼs classic house,though, Trompe Le Monde makesperfect sense: it has a sound all its own, and its raging energy guaranteedthat the band would go out on a pretty powerful, if not particularly inventive,note. It was never specially planned as a swan song, and it does not sound likea swan song, but itʼs better to go out with a bang than a whimper in any case. Itʼslike ʽMotorway To Roswellʼ is an allegory for their entire journey Trompe Le Monde is really the sound ofthe Pixiesʼ little flying saucer entering the atmosphere at full speed andburning up before it ever has the chance to land. I only wish I could enjoy theindividual songs as much as I respect the overall idea of the album, but perhapsit is an unfortunate effect of not having had the chance to enjoy it back in1991 my ear being subsequently spoilt with way too much bombastic indie rock thatwas probably influenced by it. Then again, as I said, way too much of thisalbum actually sounds like stuff that came beforeit, so itʼs all really part of that one big food chain, and maybe it is justthat this particular link does not feel particularly outstanding in the largercontext of swallowing and digesting.9commentsLabels:Pixies Monday, July 20, 2020 Elvis Presley: How Great Thou ArtELVIS PRESLEY: HOW GREAT THOU ART (1967)
1) How Great Thou Art; 2) In The Garden; 3) SomebodyBigger Than You And I; 4) Farther Along; 5) Stand By Me; 6) Without Him; 7) So High;8) Where Could I Go But To The Lord; 9) By And By; 10) If The Lord Wasnʼt WalkingBy My Side; 11) Run On; 12) Where No One Stands Alone; 13) Crying In The Chapel.
General verdict: Feels almost like the real thing definitely as close to true gospel as the man would ever get. Who needspsychedelia when you have the King on your side?
Once again, context is everything. Surroundedby the Kingʼs golden great rockʼnʼroll classics, this album would have probablyseemed underwhelming in comparison, particularly to a not particularlyreligious conscience (like mine). But surrounded on both chronological sideswith Elvisʼ soundtrack fluff, How Great ThouArt is not simply a breath of fresh air it literally towers over all ofthat crap as a genuine artistic masterpiece.
One thing is for sure: it is definitely themost creative, curious, and deeply felt of his three gospel albums. The mainproblem with His Hand In Mine wasthat it was really a gospel album only on the surface: at heart, it wasreally an album of sentimental crooning balladry nice and well-meaning, butway too slight to evoke a properly spiritual response. With this experience and let us not forget that it was actually Elvisʼ first proper new album infive years it feels as if the man had actually realized that himself, andtried to rise up to the challenge of creating a true gospel experience thistime. With a brand new producer (Felton Jarvis), a set of tunes that Elvis mostlypicked out himself rather than had imposed on him, an actual gospel quartet joininghim for backup (The Imperials), and even a set of arrangements for traditionaltunes credited to Elvis Presley in person, he clearly wanted to make somethingdifferent, and he largely succeeded.
Even the track order matters here: instead ofbeing interspersed with each other as they were on His Hand In Mine, here the slow and solemn hymns are all puttogether on the first side, while the fast and ruckus-raising spirituals areconfined to Side B. This creates a risk of bringing on monotonous boredom, butit also eliminates the risk of mood killing, and at least on the first side the most interesting one, if you ask me the approach pays off well. Twothings are immediately noticeable a hugeemphasis on keyboards, usually piano and more rarely organ, with far moresophisticated and tempestuous arrangements than before; and a new sort of depthand seriousness to Elvisʼ singing, as he goes lower than he has done in years,generally refraining from sensual crooning and going for something more earthy,if you know what I mean.
Of those six opening songs, the unhurriedwaltzing of ʽFarther Alongʼ is my favorite maybe because of the lyrics, whosesignificance goes far beyond simplistic Christian conventions, or maybe becausesomehow Elvis manages to turn it almost personal; it is interesting that if youcompare the song to other versions, from the Byrds all the way to Brad Paisley,Elvisʼ one actually omits thedecisive third verse (basically the one that states how Jesus is going to solveall your problems) and only includes the first two (listing the actual problems).Whatever be the actual truth, the gut impression is that of a tired, exhausted,but still deeply optimistic person quietly praying for alleviation almostlike a veiled cry for help, which comes across as doubly significant if you areaware of the context in which these sessions were held.
But there are other highlights, too. The titletrack has an interesting construction, starting out without a rhythm section,just wave upon wave of impressionistic piano playing and occasionalthunder-imitating drumrolls, then smoothly transitioning into another anthemicwaltz with huge booming choruses, subtly attenuated by an uncredited stringsection. And ʽSomebody Bigger Than You And Iʼ may be seen as an early precursorto Elvisʼ bigger-than-life, ʽSuspicious Mindsʼ et al. style, but still withmuch more restraint than most of his Vegas-style material, probably because mostof the pomp is generated by the loudness of the Imperialsʼ backing vocals andthe mighty organ, rather than glitzy strings and horns.
The second side of the album, opening with thefast-paced ʽSo Highʼ and rarely losing the tempo, is not as sonicallyinteresting, but you could still argue that there is more genuine rockʼnʼrollenergy and inspiration in songs like ʽSo Highʼ and ʽRun Onʼ than in all of themanʼs soundtracks from the previous couple of years combined. ʽBy And Byʼ actuallyfeatures fuzzy electric guitar riffage (!), while ʽRun Onʼ (more commonly knownas ʽGodʼs Gonna Cut You Downʼ, but they probably wanted to avoid unnecessarilyviolent connotations on the album sleeve) cannot exactly hope to compete withthe ground-shaking intensity of a Blind Willie Johnson, but still winds the manup tighter and tenser than anything since the days of ʽReady Teddyʼ. ITʼS ALIVE!
Naturally, one should not get too excited: Elvis still hasnʼt become atrue gospel prophet, and there are one too many slow waltzing tempos on here toinsist that the gospel theme might be used here as just a vehicle for experimentationand rejuvenation. And coming out with even a good gospel album in 1967, theyear of Sgt. Pepper, was hardly theright move to re-establish a good working relation with the progressive criticalminds. Yet it is quite clear that here, for the second time in a row after the (veryrelative) freshness of Spinout, wassomething that the King did not need to be ashamed of so, for all purposes,we might as well consider that the manʼs actual comeback starts here, rather than with the comebackspecial and In Memphis, even if wewould still have to deal with more soundtrack embarrassments in between.2commentsLabels:Elvis Presley Sunday, July 12, 2020 Pixies: BossanovaPIXIES: BOSSANOVA (1990)
1) Cecilia Ann; 2) Rock Music; 3) Velouria; 4) Allison; 5) IsShe Weird; 6) Ana; 7) All Over The World;8) Dig For Fire; 9) Down To The Well; 10) The Happening; 11) Blown Away; 12)Hang Wire; 13) Stormy Weather; 14) Havalina.
General verdict: The Pixies get more soulful, serious, and nostalgic,sacrificing some of their punchy adolescence as their generation ship crossesinto the next galaxy.
Pixiesʼ third album sometimes gets a bad rapbecause it clearly fails to reinvent the world of music the same way that Doolittle did and it is hardly acoincidence that, for the first time in their relatively short life, the bandhad hardly any well-gestated material left in stock, and often had to improviseright in the studio. Indeed, next to the total unpredictability and diversityof the previous two albums, Bossanovamight come across as a somewhat monotonous, sludgy, rock-oriented experience.But I personally feel that if Doolittlewas their Sgt. Pepper, then Bossanova, in some ways, stands up tobeing regarded as their White Album a record on which the greatest band of its generation has absolutely nothingleft to prove and simply resorts to having as much creative fun as possible.Sometimes it works, occasionally it doesnʼt, but the inspiration never stops,and the juice just keeps on flowinʼ.
It is not the happiest-sounding Pixies album,though, that is for sure. Much of the bandʼs humour has only been preserved inthe form of ironic viciousness, and there are overtones of melancholia,nostalgia, and acute yearning for some better place to be (from ʽVelouriaʼ toʽHavalinaʼ). Throw in the total lack of kick-ass fast tempo rockers, theprevalence of sludgy proto-grunge mid-tempo guitar melodies, and the fact thatKim Deal has largely been pushed into the background (admittedly, she did saveall her songwriting ideas for the Breeders at the time), and it is easy tounderstand why some people might need quite a bit of time to get into thisrecord. But do trust me, it is very worth getting into in the end.
Amusingly, there seems to be not one, but two introductions to the album aʽForewordʼ and a ʽPrefaceʼ, if you will. The first one is ʽCecilia Annʼ, acover of an old instrumental by The Surftones which gave the entire record itsreputation as the Pixiesʼ surf-rock album, despite the fact that there hadalways been a huge surf influence on Pixiesʼ music and Bossanova hardly seems to capitalize on it any more than any otherPixies album. What they do to the tune, by fattening up its guitar tones andputting the rhythm section into an almost heavy-metallic overdrive, is provewhat Quentin Tarantino said about surf music that to him, surf music hadalways been more about Clint Eastwood in an Ennio Morricone-orchestrated moviethan about actual surfing. Itʼs catchy, itʼs fun, itʼs danceable, but it alsohas DRAMA, and the Pixies cram as much epos and pathos into these galloping twominutes as possible. Once the two minutes are up, you have been mentallyprepared to, maybe, take this upcoming stuff a little bit more seriously thanever before... and the lack of vocals, which always raise the bar on quirkinessand playfulness in the Pixiesʼ case, is also quite important.
The vocals do appear on the second introductorytrack, seductively titled ʽRock Musicʼ but you will never understand a wordthey say, because the entire track is like a drunk antithesis to the tightcohesiveness of ʽCecilia Annʼ: with its endless distorted droning riff,continuously wailing monotonous lead guitar, and hardcore screaming all overthe studio, it veers on the edge of self-parody, or, if not, at least on theedge of total irony in the face of rock music as an artistic concept. As asong, itʼs not much more like a relentless wall of noise whose anger is abona fide theatrical performance destined to undermine and expose thecredibility of anger in music itself (a technique that would later be adoptedby Ween in their arsenal). But at the same time it is also a sign that thePixies are not afraid to mature by adhering to deeper layers of productionand even fatter guitar tones, and by making their music less prone to beingdenounced as juvenile novelty garbage (if you ever had that temptation, thatis).
That sign kind of comes in handy as you proceedon down the line. The first real Pixies song (and the first real classic) onhere is ʽVelouriaʼ, announced by grungy power chords worthy of the Seattlescene rather than the Boston one yet just a few seconds later it becomesclear that this is still a typical romantic Pixies anthem, with a lead guitarline that is more Beethoven than Kurt Cobain and vocals that have moreblue-eyed soul in them than hardcore growling. Melodically, it seems to be distantlyrelated to ʽWave Of Mutilationʼ, but the vocals and that wailing lead line giveit a more intimate, serenade-like feel, something youʼd probably expectdelivered from one star-crossʼd lover to another, especially if the romancetook place on a planet where they actually name girls ʽVelouriaʼ. The lyricsdonʼt mean much just grab on to bits and pieces like "hold my head,weʼll trampoline" and "we will wade in the shine of the ever"and thatʼs all you need to request the song for your wedding ceremony, really.The weird thing is, it actually sounds like a genuine, serious, heartwarminglove song even if, on a formal level, the band does not step outside theirpost-modern conventions at all. I can smirk at this song and I can feelcathartic at the same time few bands can manage that feat.
Each and every song that follows ʽVelouriaʼ hassomething to offer, some cute or crazy idea that might seem genius or stupidbut actually makes you notice it and evaluate it. These cute or crazy ideassomehow seem largely equivalent to me, so I do not really have any favorites in terms of pure moronic catchiness, though, the golden bough goes to ʽIs SheWeirdʼ, a song whose "is she weird, is she white, is she promised to thenight?" has graced my shower one too many times, and whose words, mood,and playful mystique make it a great candidate for some Witcher-themed video, or at least a self-made voodoo ritual. Thenagain, they are pixies, and itʼs hightime they did a creepy counting-out rhyme for the midnight hour. Again, no trueinnovations here Santiagoʼs twangy guitar lines weave around Kimʼs poundinghammer bass more or less the same way they did from the very start but noprevious Pixies song truly sounded this ghostly.
The rest of the songs I will go over quickly,especially since thereʼs so many of them. ʽAllisonʼ is a minute-long nurseryrhyme whose point is to rhyme ʽAllisonʼ with "hit the sun", and Iapprove. ʽAnaʼ is a softer, surfier sequel to ʽVelouriaʼ, with gorgeous leadguitar lines that are almost too well-defined and memorable for the songʼsdream-pop textures (if somebody tells you that all dream-pop just has to beatmospheric and squishy and slipping through your brain, shut them up with thissong). ʽAll Over The Worldʼ sounds like something Iʼd like to take with me on ageneration starship ("with a pet at my side, God in the sky...") and clocking in at 5:30, it feels almost like the Pixiesʼ own littleprogressive rock epic; at the very least, the looping "all my thoughts /all I am / are my thoughts" bit is their personal mantra and the closest,so far, they got to turning their music into a (post-modern) religiousceremony.
Of their second single, ʽDig For Fireʼ, I canonly say that it is a curious way to merge a very Talking Heads-sounding verse(funky guitar weaving, ʽOnce In A Lifetimeʼ-style sloganeering vocals and allthat) with a Madchester-influenced chorus Talking Heads meet Stone Roses and although Frank Black himself later dismissed the song as a bad TalkingHeads imitation, I think the combination of the cryptic verse with theheavenly chorus still works. ʽDown To The Wellʼ is probably the albumʼs laziestsong, but even here I like the mock-silliness of the melodic resolution, inwhich "...she went down to the WELL!" is delivered with such agleefully demonic attitude that you quickly understand WELL is really just aeuphemism for HELL. After this, ʽThe Happeningʼ delivers yet another nicemelodic contrast a strange swampy sound for the verse and a high-pitched,totally stoned psychodrone for the bridge, with the lyrics eventually turningto something that feels like rejected outtakes from an early draft of ʽBobDylanʼs 115th Dreamʼ ("I was driving doing nothing on the shores of GreatSalt Lake...").
Skipping over two more tracks, we have asymmetric ending for the album with not one, but two outros. The properending is ʽStormy Weatherʼ, a track that could pretty much serve as theblueprint for all classic Brian Jonestown Massacre material a slow, lazy,repetitive retro-Sixties psycho-party vibe with a hip (post-)modernsensibility; silly and way toorowdy-sailorish for Pixies, but if these guys just wonʼt be pigeonholed, so beit. And then, for the ʽGood Nightʼ encore you get ʽHavalinaʼ smooth, tender,full of classy romantic guitar lines, escapist as heck and a great reminder ofhow sentimental this band really is at heart.
At the end of the day, there is no dazzling,teasing flame at the heart of Bossanova;it does not even try to recreate the infectiousness of Doolittle, and it does show the band falling back just a little bittoo strong on past musical formulae again, much like the Beatles did with theWhite Album, or like the Heads didon Speaking In Tongues and theirlater albums. But the bandʼs overall vision, their sense of humour and theirability to make even clichéd musical ideas sound interesting once again arefully intact. And this additional touch of maturity might actually allow somepeople to develop a tighter emotional band with the album than any before it ʽVelouriaʼ and ʽAnaʼ, in particular, have an aura of sincere gorgeousness thatwould still be unthinkable on the much more playful and sarcastic plains of Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. The best news is, in keeping up with Great BandReputation, no two Pixies albums (at least, from their classic era) sound alike well, best for those of us who value experimentation and diversity oversticking to the exact same formula, at least.8commentsLabels:Pixies Tuesday, July 7, 2020 Elvis Presley: Spinout
ELVIS PRESLEY: SPINOUT (1966)
1) Stop, Look And Listen; 2) Adam And Evil; 3)All That I Am; 4) Never Say Yes; 5) Am I Ready; 6) Beach Shack; 7) Spinout; 8)Smorgasbord; 9) Iʼll Be Back; 10) Tomorrow Is A Long Time; 11) Down In TheAlley; 12) Iʼll Remember You.
General verdict: A slightly outstanding soundtrack in that itat least briefly acknowledges the arrival of a new musical era with new musicalvalues.
Oh wow, there are actual signs of life here! Donot get your hopes up too much we are talking just a few relatively brightspots in a stable sea of hogwash, nothing close to a true comeback; but theobjective facts are such that the soundtrack to Spinout is Elvisʼ first ever album to acknowledge, one way or theother, that the world of music didactually move on since the days of Frankie Avalon. Maybe we should thank GeorgeStoll, who had earlier produced the VivaLas Vegas soundtrack as well, or maybe we should be grateful to theparticularly odious Giant / Baum / Kaye songwriting team for only contributing one stupid corny tune this time around(the tropical sex anthem ʽBeach Shackʼ) whatever the matter, Spinout is almost inarguably thestrongest of all of Elvisʼ mid-to-late-Sixties soundtracks. This is not sayingall that much, but it is definitely saying something.
The good news are announced with the very firsttrack: ʽStop, Look And Listenʼ (written by the generally reliable Joy Byers) isa lighthearted, but sharp-sounding pop rocker, certainly more appropriate for ago-go girls performance on Shindig!than for the Monterey Festival, but played with genuine rockʼnʼroll verve and featuring what should qualify as anexperimental guitar solo for Elvis played by Tommy Tedesco, I believe,through a Leslie speaker or something. No, itʼs not amazing by any means, buthearing this kind of sound after half a dozen completely retrograde soundtracksis such a drink of cool, clear water that I am almost ready to forgive this album any of its upcoming sins inadvance.
Fortunately, ʽStop, Look And Listenʼ is notjust a fluke: throughout the album, one continuously encounters traces ofdecent contemporary production and convincing atmosphere. The Pomus-Shumancomposition ʽNever Say Yesʼ is just a slice of standard Bo Diddley beat, butwhen it is delivered with crackling, fuzzy rhythm guitar at a head-spinningfast tempo, then even the Kingʼs ever-softening voice starts regaining certainpowerful overtones, almost forgotten after hours and hours of consuming QueenieWahineʼs papayas. The title track brings back the tastefully treated electricguitar of ʽStop, Look And Listenʼ, and although it is essentially a TomJones-style cabaret number, at least its somber swagginess finally sounds instep with the times. Finally, ʽIʼll Be Backʼ is a generic mid-tempoblues-rocker, graced with lively backing vocals, screechy guitars, and even afew shadows of Elvisʼold rockabilly voice, with those almost forgottenalternations of exuberant high and somber low that heʼd largely left behind inthe Fifties.
While everything else on the soundtrack properis largely forgettable (but usually not horrible), the main attention hasalways been tied to tracks tacked on at the end which had no relation to themovie at all such as a quality cover of The Cloversʼ old hit ʽDown In TheAlleyʼ, and, most importantly, a five-minutelong (!) acoustic cover of Bob Dylanʼs old song ʽTomorrow Is A Long Timeʼ,which Dylan allegedly referred to as the one cover of a song of his that he "treasuredthe most" of course, everything Bob ever said in his life always has tobe taken tongue-in-cheek, but it is worth noting that he said this in 1969, theyear of Nashville Skyline, and thathis own soft and crooning vocal tone on that album, amusingly, was quitesimilar in mood and overtones to Elvisʼ voice on this soft and crooning cover. Besides,five minutes long! Five! The longest Elvissong up to that point was ʽOld Shepʼ, and even that one was just four. If thatainʼt sufficient homage to one of the greatest post-Elvis forces in music, Idonʼt know what is.
I will not spoil the positive impression bydiscussing the flaws of particularly inferior songs on the album justreiterate that they are not enough to spoil the overall fun, but also statethat you can really only taste that fun in full if, like me, you havepreviously sat through Harum Scarum,Frankie And Johnny and Paradise Hawaiian Style in a row. Look,even that sleeve photo is an upgrade for the first time in at least three orfour years, there is a slightly vivacious glint in the manʼs eyes, as if therewas something out there on the horizon that finally piqued his interest. Alas,time would show that this was all an accident, but it wouldnʼt be the only one and, after all, you can only stay under the water so long before you have to come up for at least one or twoquick gulps of fresh air. 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