CD Odyssey Disc 1933: Molly Hatchet

To all the folks who heard me this playing this in my car with the convertible roof down a little loud this week – I’m sorry. I genuinely thought volume would help.

Disc 1933 is…The Deed Is Done

Artist: Molly Hatchet

Year of Release: 1984

What’s up with the Cover? Molly Hatchet loves a good fantasy cover and here we have another winner.

A Death Dealer adjacent character (some dude in black plate mail with an axe) standing in a volcanic region looking tough. He appears to have a pet vulture, but it could just be this bird and the two in the sky behind him are like remoras following a shark. This guy probably kills a lot of folks and following him around would provide plenty of carrion to eat.

It is painted by Ezra Tucker, not Frank Frazetta as the cognitive dissonance in my lazy brain patterns wanted to believe.

How I Came To Know It: I have been a fan of Molly Hatchet since I was a kid, and I vaguely remember seeing this one back in the day, although I never owned it. I recently found this copy in the used section of the local record store at a good price and figured what the hell. It’s Molly Hatchet – how bad could it be?

How It Stacks Up: I have six Molly Hatchet records (their first six). Of those, “The Deed is Done” comes in at #6.

Ratings: 1 star

Sometimes a record sounds like it was made by someone with an old soul, and sometimes a record sounds like it was just made by someone who’s tired. The latter is “The Deed is Done”, which confirmed for me that when I bought my fifth Molly Hatchet record the deed was done, and I should have stopped.

I am usually a sucker for Molly Hatchet’s brand of metal-adjacent swamp-blues boogie. I have lots of it and it is mostly good. Sadly, “The Deed is Done” is a hollowed out soulless version of those earlier efforts.

The worst part is it starts promising. The record’s second song, “Backstabber” rides the ridge of pop anthem and crunchy guitar riff. It’s a dangerous ridge, and the production is steeped in the mistakes of the middle of the 1980s, but I was willing to overlook it and join in with the crowd and clap along – in time or slightly behind the beat depending on how late in the set in the evening it comes on.

However, no other songs were able to overcome the poor decisions made on this record. The opener, “Satisfied Man” should have warned me off, with its rent-a-song lack of originality and “ooh ooh” chants in place of lyrics (also featured on “Backstabber” – but done better). The guitar work is still grimy and good – a staple of Molly Hatchet records – but even that can’t overcome the sheer obviousness of the song’s construction.

At this point, dear reader, I was still feeling charitable and perfectly willing to give out two stars and a kind-hearted ribbing. I do this often – as recently as my last review in fact.

But then “She Does She Does” came along. Another uninspired entry, I was already fidgeting uncomfortably when, two minutes in, the first saxophone solo hit me. If there is a kind of music less suited to this kind of eighties saxophone noodle than Molly Hatchet, I can’t think of what it is. That sax bit is answered by a guitar solo that sounds like someone practicing scales. Almost like the guitars were finally giving up in the face of all the bad decisions.

At 4:30 in, the song was still happening to me when the second saxophone solo hit. Worse and less focused than the last, it goes on for almost two full minutes before ending in the biggest songwriting cop-out available: the fade-out. “She Does She Does” is a song that should never have been born and doesn’t even have the decency to know how to die.

From here I wasn’t feeling too charitable, and it was going to be a long uphill climb back to respectability for the remaining eight tracks. Much love to Molly Hatchet, but they did not pull it off.

Molly Hatchet has always been a sort of throwback band, and bringing their seventies rock vibe into the eighties is a challenge they’ve ably and capably accomplished. Here, they just sounded like a tired bar band, out of touch and spent, but still getting gigs on a Wednesday night.

There were moments where the opportunity was there. “Good Smoke and Whiskey” is a song that is set up to be a good time from the title alone. But nope – we get another tired song, in this case a narrator complaining that he’s losing his car and colour t.v. in the divorce settlement. The kind of guy you’ll meet in one of those seedy bars noted above, who’ll tell you all about it if you make the mistake of returning his smile while ordering a drink.

Each time the guitars chimed in my heart awoke, hoping they’d recapture their former glory, but it would all descend into a sort of Rick Springfield-adjacent radio anthem drowning out all the tough hard-scrabble charm the band is known for.

I have defended Molly Hatchet against all comers for the better part of four decades. I will still defend them overall, but should my debating opponent bring up “The Deed is Done” I will concede the point: this is a bad record.

Best tracks: Backstabber

CD Odyssey Disc 1878: Meat Loaf

It was brought to my attention that my last review (for Neil Young’s “Harvest” was published on Neil Young’s 80^th birthday. I 100% did not know this (Neil, not having invited me over for the festivities) although all those “best Neil Young song lists that were popping up make a lot more sense now.

Disc 1878 is… Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell

Artist: Meat Loaf

Year of Release: 1993

What’s up with the Cover? Our motorcycle riding barbarian from the original album (reviewed at Disc 1860) has returned, and while back on earth he has managed to find some pants.

Emboldened by his newfound clothes, and armed with a ball of hellfire that probably should be stored more securely when riding, he heads for the gates of hell, which are guarded by a the big bat demon from the original album, and also a golden angel.

The angel is there presumably to ask, “are you sure you want to do this?” and sadly for all of us, the barbarian is undeterred as are we, his hapless audience, who are about to be subjected to this record.

How I Came To Know It: Meat Loaf wasn’t on my radar in 1993, but I liked the video for the song “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” enough that when I saw this record sitting in the $3 bin earlier this year I said, “what the hell”.

How It Stacks Up: I have two Meat Loaf albums, and this is by far the lesser of the two.

Ratings: 1 star

“Bat Out of Hell II: Back to Hell” is the worst collection of aimless, pointless, directionless bombast I have heard in a very long while. If I could send this collection of songs back to hell, reader, I would do so.

The sequel to “Bat Out of Hell” takes all the lessons learned from the 1977 record and misapplies them so badly I felt multiple times that Meat Loaf and songwriter Jim Steinman were deliberately punking me.

Even the record’s most recognizable and arguably best song, the exhaustingly titled “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” can’t get it right. The original “Bat Out of Hell” title track is a song that successfully breaks all the rules. Almost a full 10 minutes of overblown glory, and you love every minute of it.

The video edit of “…I Won’t Do That” is a chunky 7:40 journey that is a bit tiresome in places, but lifted up by a really hot girl running through a mansion, and a guest vocal (famously not sung by the lip synching woman in the video) that is a delightful counterpoint to Meat Loaf’s signature vibrato.

The album version is almost five minutes longer, with no discernable melodic or narrative value in the extra content. Minus the pretty girl to look at, it quickly becomes interminable. We’re left to wonder just what Meat Loaf famously won’t do when he references “that”.

Through the course of the song he confirms he will do a number of his duet partner’s requests. These include: make magic with his ‘own two hands’ (barf), build an emerald city with grains of sand, cater to her fantasies (one of which includes being hosed down with holy water), take her on trips and provide a parting gift when she goes home. Check, check, and check.

Apparently, the only things he “won’t do” are break up with her or screw around, both of which are not things you typically do for love anyway. The mind is tempted to marvel at what else he won’t do but ultimately, we yawn.

And that’s one of the record’s good songs.

After this we get a whole load of songs that are overlong, go nowhere, and have sprawling titles like “Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back”, “Out of the Frying Pan (And Into the Fire)” and “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are”. These song titles need an edit as badly as the songs themselves (which are respectively 7:58, 7:22 and 10:14 in length).

Along the way you will be treated to such tortured “Meat-aphors” as:

“If life is just a highway, then the soul is just a car”.

By track four – the aptly titled “It Just Won’t Quit” (n.b. also over seven minutes long) you realize that Jim and Meat really won’t. It was when I heard this stanza:

“Oh, is this a blessing or is it a curse?
Does it get any better? Can it get any worse?
Will it go on forever? Is it over tonight?
Does it come with the darkness? Does it bring out the light?
Is it richer than diamonds, or just a little cheaper than spit?
I don't know what it is, but it just won't quit”

…that I began to suspect this drivel was fucking intentional.

Whatever magic Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf captured on their first album is long gone. I imagine the two of them sitting around in the studio having a conversation like this:

“Hey Jim - I’ve got an idea. Kind of half developed, and featuring a strained and obvious metaphor. Can you help me out?”

“Sounds great, Meat. I can write that. But rather than developing it into an epic rock song, how about we just double down on that tired metaphor, throw in some overused phrase that you hear every day, and repeat it ad nauseum for a solid seven to ten minutes.”

“Um, yeah, OK – but let’s put a pretty girl in the video to boost sales.”

The record’s final song is the right-sized (five minute) and generally passable “Lost Boys and Golden Girls” which right at the end reminds you that Meat Loaf, for all his faults, has a great rock and roll voice, and that Steinman can write a song. But by then I had already endured 70 minutes of garbage and was too far gone to care.

Best tracks: The video edit of “I’d Do Anything for Love” (n.b. – not on the record), and “Lost Boys and Golden Girls”

CD Odyssey Disc 1804: Ronnie Montrose

Because my reviews are from my own music collection, they tend to skew positive. But every now and then something terrible manages to surface.

Disc 1804 is…Open Fire

Artist: Montrose (specifically, Ronnie Montrose)

Year of Release: 1978

What’s up with the Cover? Ronnie Montrose’s Giant Head, obscured by a bunch of circuitry and targets or dials. Perhaps this signifies that Montrose has been replaced by a terminator, on a mission to exterminate all good music it can find.

How I Came To Know It: My friend Spence introduced me to the band Montrose, but not this particular album, which was the last entry in a 5-disc set, and one I hadn’t heard when I bought it. The set was a good deal though, so how bad could it be?

How It Stacks Up: I have five Montrose albums. This is easily the worst one, and it is not even close.

Ratings: 1 star

You know that scene in Animal House at the toga party where Bluto smashes that dude’s guitar and then says “sorry” and walks away? That’s what I wanted to do to Ronnie Montrose’s “Open Fire” album from the opening note. The feeling only grew through what would become 35 very long and very hellish minutes.

On his first solo album away from his namesake band, Ronnie Montrose acts like he is finally free could do exactly whatever he wanted. Really show the fans that all that kick-ass, hard-rockin’ Montrose stuff was only the beginning! That he, Ronnie Montrose, could do anything, blend any style, and make any creative choice he desired without consequence. Well, I give full credit for the ambition.

The result is a record that manages to predict the soft yacht rock snoozefest of the early eighties, only with the guitar playing the role of villain usually reserved for the saxophone. The opening track, - unimaginatively titled “Openers” - sounds like the soundtrack to some early eighties cop-show drama, or maybe a low budget TV movie. “Town Without Pity,” similarly takes no pity (on its listeners) with some mix of easy listening and jazz that you’d expect to be playing in an elevator where you find yourself trapped.

The title track is particularly overwrought. Yes, the song has a groove, but it’s not a particularly interesting one. This song feels like the sad soundtrack of a car chase between a 1980 Mustang and a 1994 Camaro. Nothing is moving too quickly, and it ain’t pretty to look at either. The guitar solo on “Open Fire” is like that jam session where there’s the makings of a happy groove going, but then the guy on guitar decides to go apeshit and play a solo all his own for eight bars. When he’s done, he looks up with a big grin like he’s done everyone a favour, only to find the others staring at him in sullen silence. You can’t even fire him; he owns the band.

Things don’t improve when the guitar takes a back seat. Yes “Mandolina” has a mandolin, but it mostly features a sequencer and a synthesizer front and centre. The song feels like when you visit your buddy on Boxing Day and find out he got a programmable Casio for Christmas. No, he has not learned to play it yet, but in the rush of discovery that is not going to stop him from trying out all the buttons.

Seeking something positive, I lighted on “Leo Rising”. Yeah, it feels a bit like you’ve stumbled into a Renaissance fair, but Montrose plays with good tone and you can hear the vestiges of what makes those early Montrose records so awesome. There are moments of this in other songs as well, but they are fleeting.

More often than not, the record had me in a state of diffuse and unfocused agitation. In addition to reminding me of Bluto’s act of guitar violence, I found myself wishing for that scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail where they eat the minstrels. Sadly, it was not to be. There would be no rejoicing.

Instead, we are left with a meandering directionless, self-congratulatory record that. It is all the more infuriating because I really like Montrose, the band. Those guys made some killer music, and Ronnie Montrose’s writing and guitar are a big part of the reason why. He is a gifted player, and to hear that talent spent on this easy listening wankery was doubly difficult.

The last song on the record is called “No Beginning/No End”. There is another word for that, Ronnie: interminable. Ordinarily I would send it on its way, but it is part of that great 5-disc set of Montrose classics, so instead I’ll keep it as part of the set. I’ll just remind myself never to play it.

Sorry for the uncharacteristic negative vibes, friends. This rarely happens, but I’ve got to keep it real. I encourage you to check out Montrose’s early catalogue – just steer clear of “Open Fire”.

Best tracks: nope. “Leo Rising” is the best of a bad bunch

CD Odyssey Disc 1523: Sophie B Hawkins

Under threat of snow, I took the bus to work today (my car is not a mudder). While the bus was a bit busy for my pandemic sensibilities, I was rewarded with something fun – a nice long walk home. Pre-car, I used to do this all the time and not only did it give me a time to decompress from the days’ events, I had 45 minutes for music listening as well. In this case it also meant I could be rid of this terrible record after a single day. Thank you, snow warning.

Disc 1523 is….  Tongues and Tails

Artist: Sophie B. Hawkins

Year of Release: 1992

What’s up with the Cover? Sophie does her best impression of forties movie star.

How I Came To Know It: I’ve owned this CD a long time, although I rarely put it on. I don’t remember buying it, but that’s probably cognitive dissonance on my part, as I subconsciously protect my ego from such a monumentally bad decision.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Sophie B. Hawkins album, so it can’t stack up.

Ratings: 1 star

“Tongues and Tails” opening track begins with the faint sound of train cars clicking along railroad tracks. This has nothing to do with the song, adds nothing musically, and is the harbinger of what you can expect the rest of the way on an unfocused and overwrought album that has aged badly.

That opening song is “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” which is Hawkins most famous and successful song, and probably the reason I bought the record in the first place. “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” is overproduced, as is everything that will follow it. However, it has good bones and an above average hook that rises above. The song will go on to lean heavily on that hook for success, but it withstands the strain.

The next song, “California Here I Come,” starts well, and had me thinking that I might enjoy all the songs as much as the first one. This optimism was not to last. Before too long, Hawkins has decided to throw in her breathy whisper-talk. She uses this throughout the record, and while it is her signature thing, it doesn’t work for me. It might have been better here if she didn’t decide to use it to recite the Lord’s Prayer in the middle of the song, but alas, that’s what she does.

It gets much worse on the whisper-talk front as we progress, culminating on the album’s final tune, “Don’t Stop Swaying.” Here we have an interlude where Hawkins retells the story of Hansel and Gretel, except in her version after they’re lost, they decide they should make out. Apparently, the fact that they are siblings is not an issue the listener should concern themselves with. I’ll be charitable and assume there is some strained symbolism at work here, although if there is it was lost on me. Maybe it is a commentary on how leaving your kids in the woods to starve or be eaten by witches is liable to, you know, emotionally mess them up? Anyway, if there was some emotional gravitas hidden in this song, I was unable to discover it.

The record is replete with bad production decisions, and at least twice there is the faint sound of sirens (police or ambulance, I’m not sure which). This was occasionally disconcerting and consistently annoying. One of these “siren” songs, “Mysteries We Understand,” reminded me a lot like Madonna’s 1989 hit “Respect Yourself” in many ways except the one that matters: “Respect Yourself” is a good song. I suggest you skip this record and listen to Madonna instead.

It doesn’t help that Hawkins is drowning all these tunes with a bunch of “serious art” decisions that never satisfactorily resolve, nor make the songs any better. On the sultry cover of Bob Dylan’s “I Want You” she almost gets there, only to have a phone ringing in the back of the mix. Maybe this is supposed to evoke a booty call, but the effect on me was much more akin to having your mom calling and leave a message on your answering machine while you’re having sex.

I don’t know how I have not consigned this album to the pyre long ago, but it has lurked like a bad penny on my CD shelves for almost thirty years. That ends today.

Best tracks: Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

CD Odyssey Disc 1518: Alanis Morissette

I’ve mostly broken my bad habit of buying albums for purely historical interest or completionism. Mostly.

Disc 1518 is….  Alanis

Artist: Alanis Morrisette

Year of Release: 1991

What’s up with the Cover? Alanis’ Giant Head. It looks like she’s holding her head up with one arm or maybe she’s voguing, as was the fashion at the time.

How I Came To Know It: I knew a single off this album from seeing the videos on MuchMusic but never considered buying the record. However, last month local record store Lyle’s was going out of business and had a 50% off sale. This record is hard to find, and I decided to buy it on a whim for…purely historical interest.

How It Stacks Up: I have two Alanis Morrisette albums. Of the two, this one is a distant second.

Ratings: 1 star

Let’s not mince words; this is not a good record. And while honour compels me to explain just why I think this, I do not plan to be excessively cruel on this review. Instead, I’ll start by noting that Alanis Morrisette was 16 years old when she recorded it. When I was 16 my biggest claim to fame was winning a high school trophy for best drama student. While I was doing that, Alanis was winning a Juno and selling 100,000+ copies of her debut record. While I don’t usually go in for biographical context, I think that bears saying.

OK, back to the ‘honour compels me’ part of the experience. This record is painful on multiple fronts. Let’s start with this genre, which I think is late eighties/early nineties dance pop. This form of music doesn’t lend itself to excellence to begin with, and here I found it unfavourably reminiscent of bad Paula Abdul (i.e. all of it) or most backing tracks played at fashion shows. Put simply, this is not my jam.

For one thing, the production of this era is atrocious, and this album is a poster child for the problems typical of the age. The drum machine is artificial, but not in that vibrant and urgent way that New Wave manages. It just feels cheap, and emotionless, like it was produced on a Casio in someone’s basement. And like an old dog won’t hunt, the thin bass won’t thump. The whole thing feels tinny.

There are some passable melodies buried in here, but they are buried deep. It is too bad because just going full pop would’ve helped, but with all the excess dance-track stuff going on, everything gets lost in a jumble. There are horns, strange synth sounds and on “Walk Away” a sample of some guy saying, “we gonna do a song that you never heard before.” After my first listen, I kept desperately hoping it would be true.

Alanis’ vocals are good although – again – unfortunately submerged in the pea soup of an over-taxed mixing board. Her vibrato delivery that would be so compelling a few years later on “Jagged Little Pill” is here, and it maddens me, because I love that vibrato, and this record gives it short shrift. Her ability to sing heartfelt emotional content is one of her strengths as an artist, but the artificiality of this record never gives her a chance.

There is one song (“On My Own”) where the Soulless Record Execs let her get ‘natural’ but a lot of that track is her straining to sing in a smooth pop style that does her no favours. It feels like they are trying to take the dynamic brilliance of her vocals and shove it into a square hole. It just doesn’t fit. Let Alanis be Alanis, SREs!

Lyrically, I never expect a lot from dance music, but as modern bands like Confidence Man demonstrate, you can have clever lyrics without giving away anything on the “danceable” front. I don’t mind that a lot of these songs are from the perspective of a teenage girl; that’s who Alanis is at this point. I do object to strained rhymes and imagery that feels jumbled together to serve the rhyme.

This includes the hit single “Never Too Hot” which is an undeniable earworm, but just what…

“Always too hot, never too cold
You make your best shot too hot to hold
Never too young, never too old
You gotta go for gold”

…is all about, I have no idea. I’m going to go out on a limb and say “not every much”. That said, when this song came on at the club back in 1991 there is a good chance I got up and danced to it. It is cheesy as hell, but it is danceable, and decades later if you quote a line from that chorus at people, they’ll quote the next line back at you. This damned dance song may be vacuous but it gets in your head and stays there, which is the main mission of most dance music.

So kudos for that, Ms. Morissette, but you’re still just getting the one star. That and the Juno.

Best tracks: Feel Your Love, Never Too Hot

CD Odyssey Disc 1152: King Diamond

When I review a new (to me) record, I tend to give it at least three full listens before I start talking about it (once when I first buy it and at least two in a row before I wrote the review). It isn’t a rule, but almost any record deserves this common courtesy.

I started writing this one after only two and a half listens because the thought of having to listen to it for another day was too painful to contemplate.

Disc 1152 is… Conspiracy

Artist: King Diamond

Year of Release: 1989

What’s up with the Cover? King Diamond consistently has awesome album covers, but there is always the exception that proves the rule, and this is it. The saddest thing about this cover is you can tell that King Diamond thinks he looks super scary and intense. Instead he looks like a guy about to fail a job interview to be a clown.

“No, Mr. Diamond – we’re looking for someone to do children’s birthday parties. This is highly inappropriate.”

“No, Mr. Diamond this isn’t suitable for “rock star” either.”

How I Came To Know It: I bought a 5 CD set of King Diamond’s first 5 albums. It was a good deal. I got three albums I really wanted, one I could live with and…this one.

How It Stacks Up:  I used to have eight King Diamond albums, but I gave away “Abigail II” so now I have seven. Of the remaining seven albums, I rank this one eighth, slipping it behind the now departed “Abigail II”. It will remain in my collection because breaking up the 5 CD set would just wreck the boxed set, but it is going to sit in there and rot.

Ratings:  1 star

“Conspiracy” is what would happen if someone wanted to cross a creepy Alice Cooper concept album with the driving power of an Iron Maiden album – only crappy. I can see what King Diamond is going for here, and I usually like his mix of camp and power, but this record was just…not good.

As ever, King Diamond has a weird story to tell. Like “Abigail II,” “Conspiracy” is a sequel to a previous album (in this case 1988’s “Them”). The original story revolves around a house haunted with spirits, and “Conspiracy” sees the protagonist from the original return to the house in order to – o, who gives a crap. There is a plot here, but in order for me to be engaged in it I’d have to be enjoying the music, and I didn’t.

That isn’t to say it isn’t played with skill, because it is and guitarist Andy Larocque once again shows his virtuosity. Unfortunately, his prowess is wasted on songs that are bloated and unfocused.

King Diamond’s vocals are his usual weird mix of shrill and power, but with this being my fourth King Diamond review in my last 60 albums I was tired of hearing it. If you like an artist, you should revel in exploring their back catalogue, but instead King Diamond has just worn me out. It doesn’t help that this is the worst of what he has to offer.

There are weird waltzes, Phantom of the Opera organs, and an homage to the wedding march, There are also various characters voiced by Diamond – as he is wont to do – talking about stuff I either couldn’t make out or didn’t find interesting. The music is proggy without being interesting, and laden with power chords but lacking power. Songs shift around from one concept to another, all loosely stitched together and overlong.

Even the best song on the record, “A Visit From the Dead” is only half good. It spends the first two minutes with Larocque plunking away on what sounds like a very bad folk song and then turns into something that sounds like it was made for a bad horror movie for another minute. Finally at the three minute mark the song rocks out with a pretty killer riff. I liked that riff a lot and the guitar solo that follows is pretty solid also, but it was not worth the wait.

The most annoying thing about “Conspiracy” is I can’t even get rid of it easily, because it comes in a box set and tossing it would essentially make selling the box set later (which I am considering) almost impossible. This just made me crankier, and probably helped drop it down to its one lowly star.

I’ve got two albums left in that boxed set to review, and they are on notice. Do better!

Best tracks: ½ of “A Visit From the Dead”

CD Odyssey Disc 951: Duran Duran

Happy holidays! Best present of the year: the Miami Dolphins are back in the NFL post-season and we got there in part while eliminating the hated Buffalo Bills. Huzzah!

Speaking of blind hate, when I rolled this next album I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of disappointment. Sheila (who likes it) sharply reminded me that this odyssey is about keeping an open mind to every album.

That’s true, and I do my best, but my dislike of this next band goes well beyond any logical reasoning. It just…is. With that in mind, here’s my best effort.

Disc 951 is….Rio

Artist: Duran Duran

Year of Release: 1982

What’s up with the Cover? Patrick Nagel art was as synonymous with early eighties pop culture as…well, as Duran Duran. I kind of like this cover although if a girl’s skin is as white as her teeth, you should check for bite marks on your neck after every date.

How I Came To Know It: I knew this album in the eighties when it came out, but chiefly through the practice of actively avoiding it. It came into our collection earlier this year when Sheila decided to break the Duran Duran embargo and buy it.

How It Stacks Up:  This is the only Duran Duran album we currently have [knocks on wood] so it can’t really stack up.

Ratings: 1 star – see below for special calculation procedures for Duran Duran albums

Since my early teens I have hated Duran Duran, both for their music and for the way they took over the consciousness of my junior high in the early eighties. At every high school dance, on every music video channel and on the radio of every other car that passed this band’s blend of borderline New Wave and pop pablum would assault your ears. For a budding young metal head like myself, outside of Much Music’s Power Hour, there was no escape.

Long time readers will remember that I was pretty narrow minded back then when it came to music. I’ve since happily come to my senses over amazing eighties bands like the Police, U2 and the Clash, all of whom I initially dismissed when I was a teenager. Duran Duran is not so lucky.

The album’s first song is the poster child for what is wrong with this record. “Rio” was a massive hit which had all the girls gabbing about how dreamy Simon Le Bon and Andy Taylor were, and all the boys trying to copy their look. Or maybe it was Roger Taylor or John Taylor; I don’t remember and there’s too many guys named Taylor in this band to keep it all straight. Even I would watch the video when it came on (it featured a beautiful woman in a bikini and body paint, after all).

“Rio” has a passable keyboard hook and a solid chorus and could have been an average song, despite all the bangs, bells and whistles that are thrown in an attempt to ruin it. But then at the three minute mark we are subjected to a drawn out and pointless saxophone solo. This may be the worst sax solo ever, a wound to this song so infected that nothing could save it. The solo eventually ends, draining (like a flushed toilet) into a synthesizer doing an impression of a xylophone. We never learn why.

This was my reaction to most of the songs on this record, which load a ton of disparate bells, bangs and whistles into a cacophonous hodge-podge. It is about as tempting as a frittata comprised of ingredients from the three preceding days of leftovers because that’s what happens to be in the fridge.

And this is a damn shame, because the bass and drums (played by a couple guys named Taylor) are actually pretty solid, particularly John’s bass playing, which gives the songs a nice and vaguely funky foundation at the ground floor. The fact that the band decides to build a ziggurat made out of shit isn’t entirely his fault.

So what about my promise to Sheila to have an open mind? Weren’t there any songs I liked? Yes, to my horror there were three. “Lonely in Your Nightmare” has a cool sound that reminded me of the Smiths or the Cure, and while there is a bit too much futzing around with the drum sounds, the melody still shines through. “Hungry Like the Wolf” is also a good song, with one of the better doo-da-doo-doo-da-doos in music. That annoying pseudo-xylophone is in the background throughout, but it doesn’t quite wreck what is a good track.

The album ends with “The Chauffeur” which I also enjoyed, a steamy song full of sexual tension that reminded me favourably of Depeche Mode, despite Simon Le Bon’s one-note vocals. In fact, when Duran Duran are at their best they sound a lot like an inferior version of Depeche Mode. At their worst they just sound like…Duran Duran.

Even the songs that I liked tend to go on too long, and the whole album (which is 43 minutes long despite having just nine songs) tends to drag. Or maybe it is just that I don’t like most of the songs and just want them to end soon after they begin. Maybe the songs are longer because they are meant as dance songs, but I found this shit impossible to dance to in high school and nothing over the years has changed my mind.

Everyone has that one band they hate, and Duran Duran is mine. If I was being fair, I’d acknowledge this record has enough going for it that it warrants a two star rating, but I’m not going to be fair. Would I congratulate the Buffalo Bills on a good effort on Saturday as my Miami Dolphins ended their season? No I wouldn’t.  Would I applaud the Montreal Canadiens for winning a game? Again, no.

Besides, I always give vampire moves an extra star for no reason (it’s how the Twilight movies earned their single star). I also grade up every movie that includes Ron Pearlman by a star because…Ron Pearlman! The universe demands balance. I will provide that balance by arbitrarily giving any Duran Duran record -1 star for equally baseless reasons.  

Best tracks: Lonely In Your Nightmare, Hungry Like the Wolf, The Chauffeur

CD Odyssey Disc 850: Neil Young

This next album is a disaster. Ordinarily I would have sold it immediately after I gave it its requisite three listens (I always give a new album at least three chances to impress me). I kept it only so I could write this review, giving my ears a small measure of vengeance.

Disc 850 is….A Letter Home

Artist: Neil Young

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover? Neil prepares to settle in and record something old timey. The picture is a lot more fun than the result.

How I Came To Know It: I read an article about how Jack White and Neil Young had gotten together to record an album on an old 1940s analog recording booth. The idea appealed to me so I bought it without having heard a single track. This was a mistake.

How It Stacks Up:  I have 20 Neil Young albums, which I think demonstrates that I think highly of him. I do not think highly of “A Letter Home” however, which finishes in last place at #20.

Ratings: 1 star

Neil Young has done many innovative projects over the years, and I’ve enjoyed most of them. “A Letter Home” is not one of those. It is a self-indulgent, meandering mess that takes some of my favourite songs and sucks the life out of them.

The origins for this album lie with Jack White, who got his hands on an old 1940s recording booth, presumably because this is the kind of junk multimillionaire music enthusiasts spend their money on. I don’t judge Jack for this; if I were a multimillionaire I would probably collect rare old stuff too. This should have been the end of it, with the booth locked away with the didgeridoos and Theremins in his Indiana Jones-style vault full of bizarre stuff.

Instead, Jack invited Neil over and showed off his discovery. I imagine them as walking around looking at it over a couple of beers, slowly getting drunk or stoned (or both) before deciding it would be a good idea to lay down a dozen tracks or so. I have to imagine them drunk and stoned because I have too much respect for both of them to picture them doing this sober.

Kidding aside, I expect a lot of musicianship and production talent went into getting the booth to sound as good as it does.

And how good is that, you ask? The production values on this album are about as bad as you can get and still call it music. It sounds like it has been recorded in a tin can that’s been insulated with dung. It sounds like one of those 78s you buy at the thrift store for fifty cents only to discover that someone spilled beer on it in 1964 and never cleaned it off. It sounds like hearing am radio through a walkie-talkie. It sucks.

In Jack and Neil’s defence, this is the sound they were going for. They wanted this authentic ‘old timey’ sound and boy, did they achieve it. Modern indie artists in love with old musical forms have nothing on these guys. This record takes indie to a whole new level. You might say it ‘punks’ indie, and in more ways than one.

Young’s guitar style, which is usually so refreshing sounds more like a vagrant plucking out a tune on a street corner. The piano sounds equally painful (I’m not sure how they fit a piano into the booth, but I wish they hadn’t). Neil’s voice has always been a bit frail, and this album keeps all that frailty intact, while managing to strip out any of the usual emotion from the delivery.

Worst of all, this album gives this this terrible treatment to some of my most beloved songs. Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country,” Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” and “If You Could Read My Mind” and Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown” are all equally abused. The more I liked the original, the more painful it was to hear them hacked out as part of Jack White’s mad science project.

It’s clear that Neil is enjoying the connection to a technology as old as him, but it doesn’t make it good. I also sometimes bang away on my guitar for the sheer pleasure of it, but I don’t record it and try to sell it to people.

“A Letter Home” was a nifty idea, but it results in a very unappealing record. Jack White’s recording booth should be hermetically sealed in some box like the ark of the covenant in ‘Raiders’ and for the same reason; so it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

Best tracks:  uh…nope.

CD Odyssey Disc 661: Alice Cooper

After a crazy weekend where I behaved like I was twenty years younger, I awoke today hung over and feeling decidedly 44 again. It was a great weekend though, surrounded by friends and revelry so I regret nothing.

Speaking of good friends, discerning readers will note that I seem to have skipped reviewing Disc 660 – that’s because it was an album by a friend of mine. I listened to it and I loved it (and generally love all the music he’s made over the years) but way back at the beginning of the Odyssey (at Disc 56/67, to be precise) I decided I wouldn’t review albums by my friends.

In addition to excess, it was a weekend full of music, starting on Friday night where Sheila and I and some friends went to see Canadian punk legend Art Bergmann at the Upstairs Lounge. Bergmann was great, and so was the opening act RADco. In fact although I loved Bergmann, it was RADco that inspired me to buy one of their downloads – they are a cool band with a great energy. They reminded me of L7 crossed with very early No Doubt. I’m looking forward to downloading their music, once I get enough courage (I always buy my music in hard format, so this is new territory).

With all these good musical experiences, this next review is a sharp turn into disappointment.

Disc 661 is…. Science Fiction

Artist: Alice Cooper (mostly)

Year of Release: recorded in 1969, although not released until 1987.

What’s up with the Cover?  A young Alice Cooper, sans eye makeup, looks thoughtful and – dare I say it – reasonably sober. Behind him, his alter ego lurks, haunting and haunted at the same time.

Also note in the upper right hand corner the logo for “music options.” Not all options are good, my friends.

How I Came To Know It:  I was browsing through the Alice Cooper rack at a local music store looking for rarities and found this – a rarity! Made in Holland, no less so you know it’s…er…European. I’d never heard of any of the songs, which was even better.

How It Stacks Up:  I have all twenty-six of Alice Cooper’s studio albums (I’m kind of a fan). “Science Fiction” is a live album, so doesn’t really stack up against the studio collection.

Rating: 1 star. I never thought it would come to this, Alice.

Alice Cooper is one of my all-time favourite musicians, and he’s given me a lot of joy over the years, which is why it pains me to have to say this, but “Science Fiction” is a wretchedly awful album.

The record was originally a live illegal bootleg, which I guess somewhere along the way became legitimate when some Soulless Record Exec (or Alice himself) figured they could make a buck off of it.

This is very early in Alice Cooper’s career, and while I liked the relative obscurity of the songs initially, it didn’t take long to realize why they have remained obscure. They just aren’t that good. Most are little more than two to three minute snippets of musical ideas. They are performed like the band is wading through knee-deep industrial sludge; slow and plodding.

Not in that good, crunchy kind of way either. The songs lurch around and fail to create any energy. It is like Pink Floyd tried to write Cream songs and then performed them in the shower drunk.

I realize this is a live bootleg, but even so the sound quality is awful. Whoever recorded this should have reviewed what they had and kept it private. In fact, it is an early cautionary tale for all those folks that record concerts on their phones and then post them to Youtube. Mostly, those clips suck. Digging through them trying to find something worth listening to is not unlike digging through “Science Fiction” looking for a song I liked. The main difference being at least some of those Youtube clips are OK.

In fact, the best sounding songs on the album are “Goin’ to the River” and “Ain’t That Just Like a Woman” and those songs are (inexplicably) performed by Ronnie Hawkins, not Alice Cooper at all. What the hell?

For no apparent reason the other songs all have the wrong titles (it’s no wonder I didn’t recognize any of them). This isn’t just a weird CD upload thing either; the album prints them with the wrong titles, and always has. The title track is actually called “Fields of Regret” a song off of their first album “Pretties For You.”  Well, it is half of “Fields of Regret” anyway – at the 2:40 mark it just abruptly stops. I guess I should be thankful for small miracles.

“Fields of Regret” would certainly be a better name for this album, since I deeply regret ever buying it. I’m going to get rid of it so that I can get back to my usual thoughts about Alice Cooper – that he is a great talent and a living legend of rock and roll that consistently gives me joy. I hope I roll one of his many awesome albums soon to wash the echo of “Science Fiction” out of my ears.

Best tracks:  um…no.

CD Odyssey Disc 555: Frank Zappa

After a disappointing Dolphins loss, I suppose a disappointing music review is only fitting.

Disc 555 is…. Weasels Ripped My Flesh

Artist: Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

Year of Release: 1970

What’s up with the Cover?  This cover reminds us that no matter how poor a shave you get with an electric razor, the answer should never be to attach a weasel to it.  I know it is hard to believe, since “attach a weasel to it” does solve so many household challenges, but for shaving I recommend an old fashioned safety razor if your electric is on the fritz.

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve been meaning to get into Frank Zappa for a while, but the combination of his daunting discography and his reputation for inaccessibility kept me from pulling the trigger.  Knowing I was interested in getting some, Sheila bought me this one as a Christmas gift.

How It Stacks Up:  I have two Frank Zappa albums, but “Joe’s Garage” is so new that I haven’t even listened to it.  I am going to go out on a limb and say it is better than “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” putting the latter at number two.

Rating:  1 star

The opening song on “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” is “Didja Get Any Onja.” It is a seven minute song opening and closing with some bizarre and directionless fusion jazz.  In the middle it features someone braying like a donkey, and a man with a German accent telling a story about standing on a street corner as a child. It is every bit as horribly pointless as it sounds, and a perfect summary for what the rest of this album will sound like.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  The next song, “Directly From My Heart to You” is an almost straight up blues number.  It is played deliberately devoid of any blues sensibilities or feeling but through all the acid and disconnect I think it was (mostly) a blues song and (mostly) good.

The other (mostly) good song on the album is “My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama” which in places is even better than mostly good, and even downright funky.  “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama” is a genuinely enjoyable song – so much so that I decided after my first three listens to this album that I’d keep it just for that song.  Now that I’ve listened to the record for a fourth (and final) time, I am overturning that decision.  This album has to go.

Being inventive is laudable – expected even from a band called The Mothers of Invention – but that if that invention is music it still has to be listenable at the end of it, and most of “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” feels like a chore to get through.

The song titles are strange and affected throughout, although I will admit knowing the name of one song was “Prelude To the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask” made the song make slightly more sense.  Of course, that was before it went from directionless jazz outtakes and descended into the laughter of lunatics and then later a piano solo played over the sounds of pigs grunting, or possibly the sounds of men mimicking the sound of grunting pigs.

And while people not familiar with this record will think I am exaggerating for dramatic effect, I can assure you this is exactly what these songs feature.  Some albums are so strange there is no need to stretch the truth.

Not content to torture the ears with a variety of patchwork sounds and musical experiments – some of which maddeningly almost work – Zappa feels the need to describe just what he is doing.  In “Toad of the Short Forest” he literally describes it on the track as follows:

“At this very moment on stage we have drummer A playing in 7/8, drummer B playing in 3/4, the bass playing in 3/4, the organ playing in 5/8, the tambourine playing in 3/4 and the alto sax blowing its nose.”

Even if you could do this (and these guys manage it) why in the nine hells would you bother?

By track six, “The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue” I was desperate for more clues to understanding.  I broke down and looked up “Eric Dolphy” on Google, learning that he was a mid-century jazz musician of some repute.

This explained the aimless jazz noodling that is ever-present on the record, and armed with this knowledge and by continuing to pay close attention to song titles like “Dwarf Nebula Processional March & Dwarf Nebula” I was able to come close to a semblance of meaning.  However, this didn’t make it any more fun to listen to.

When you’re at a poetry night and the guy on stage feels the need to explain what his poem is about, this is not usually a good sign.  He should be able to let the art speak for itself, but often he’s throwing in explanations because without them the art just doesn’t stand up.  This is how I felt about “Weasels Ripped My Flesh.”  Without a speech on time signatures, or allusions to a jazz musician I might have never known what the hell was going on.  The pig snorting and donkey braying underscores that there isn’t much going on anyway.

Zappa is well-loved by many musically people, but if “Joe’s Garage” isn’t a damn sight better than “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” my genuine attempt to grok him is going to be at a quick end.  I don’t care how clever or talented you are, at the end of the day, listening to music shouldn’t be this unrewarding.

Best tracks:   My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama

CD Odyssey Disc 432: Radiohead

At last the weekend has arrived!  I am hopeful for a very uneventful one, in the same way I am hoping my next record is better than this one was.

Disc 432 is…Amnesiac

Artist: Radiohead

Year of Release: 2001

What’s up with the Cover?  A child has apparently doodles on a frayed piece of fabric.  This cover is uninspiring, pointlessly obtuse and overwhelmingly awful.  The CD booklet inside is filled with 26 more pages of equally gag-worthy deconstructionist crap.

How I Came To Know It: As I’ve noted in previous Radiohead reviews, I’ve known this band since the beginning but Sheila is more into them than I am.  “Amnesiac” is either her drilling through their collection or (more likely) me buying it for her because I know she likes Radiohead and assume that, like me, when someone likes a band they want to have every album by that band.

How It Stacks Up:  We have seven Radiohead albums and when I reviewed “Hail to the Thief” back at Disc 214 I said I’d be optimistic and say it was the worst.  Sadly, my optimism was misplaced.  “Amnesiac” is the worst Radiohead album I have heard.  With three still to review, I sincerely hope this is as low as the bar goes.

Rating:  1 star

Thom Yorke and Radiohead, you are so clever with sound – so why does this album make me want you to take a long walk off a short pier?  Because being clever with sound doesn’t mean making listenable music.

Music is for listening, guys, not for demonstrating how niftily you can use the sound of some object striking an empty oil drum.  Or whatever the hell that sound is that starts this album off with the exceptionally poorly spelled track, “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box.”  Get it the words are crushed, like the sardines!  Yeah, I get it, and it is stupid.  Use your words, gentlemen.  Not that it matters what this song (or most of these songs) is called, since the title bears little resemblance to what they’re about.

“Packt…” goes on into a strange and pointless journey into sound, with Thom Yorke’s alien voice singing “I’m a reasonable man, get off my case” over and over again.  It came maddeningly close to a song at that point, but instead of developing it into something we were treated to a wide array of sounds – some computer generated, some sampled, none of which go anywhere.  I’m a reasonable man, Radiohead, but seriously, get off my case.

And that is pretty much a microcosm of this whole record.  Full of half-started songs that are fully developed into some 21^st century incarnation of the Art of Noise, only completely stripped of any opportunity for the listener to say “oh, yeah!” in a deep voice, and devoid of any breathy chick-a-chick-aaah!s.

I have a great deal of respect for Radiohead as a band.  They are clearly chock-full of talent, and their first two albums (“Pablo Honey” and “The Bends”) are excellent.  They even have a few in later years that are worth your time.  On “Amnesiac” I could only find one song worth my time, “I Might Be Wrong,” which has a groovy guitar riff (I suspect sampled, but so what?) and Thom’s ‘falsetto in water’ sounding voice fitting in with a strange beauty that is the band at their best.  Radiohead at their best is pretty good, too.

However, as a record “Amnesiac” is not Radiohead at their best.  This record is self-indulgent sound-making.  It is like electronica jazz, without the soul that jazz brings even the most obtuse songs of that genre.

Songs like “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” made me feel like I was intercepting signals from an alien spacecraft on my short wave radio.  I guess I should’ve expected that, with a title like “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” – yes “pulk” is not a typo.  In addition to being pointless, this song has a rolling bass line that on headphones makes it feel like your ears are popping from an elevation descent.  How clever, Radiohead – you really recreated that unpleasant sensation!  Now how about some music?

There are those among you that will simply say that I don’t get this stuff, or that my musical knowledge is too limited to give a meaningful review of it.  You may be right on both counts, but I’m not a classically trained musician, nor am I a computer technician.  I’m just a guy who likes music, and listens to a lot of it, giving my opinion.

However, desperate for understanding I broke my usual self-imposed Modernist approach to music reviews and looked the record up on Wikipedia, where, unsurprisingly, the album had received reams of critical attention.  For the above mentioned “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” there is even some background on how they made the song on a Roland MC505 sequencer.  Band member Colin Greenwood is quoted as saying

"You give the machine a key and then you just talk into it. It desperately tries to search for the music in your speech, and produces notes at random. If you've assigned it a key, you've got music."

Um…not in my world you don’t.  You’ve got a science experiment; maybe you’ve even got an interesting exploration of new sounds that could one day become music.  But the proof in what you’ve got is how listenable it is, how emotionally evocative it is, how it speaks to your soul.  Most of the songs on “Amnesiac” speak to my soul about as much as a phone ringing, or the buzzer that tells me when my laundry is done.

Of course, the one song I liked is “I Might Be Wrong,” and the title is a fitting reminder that art is different for everyone.  Some people must love this record – it went #1 in Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany, and #2 in the United States.  It is also a companion piece to “Kid A” a critical darling of a record that I’ve yet to review.  After listening to “Amnesiac” I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.

Best tracks:  I Might Be Wrong

CD Odyssey Disc 388: Rare Air

I wanted so badly to get through this next review that when I got home I just sat in the bathroom and waited for the last five minutes to roll by (the rules precluding any activity more involved.

O, how I wanted to reach behind me and read a few pages of Hunter S. Thompson’s “The Great Shark Hunt” (my current bathroom reader) but rules are rules, and no such activity is permitted when listening to an album for the CD Odyssey.

All of which is to say, I earned this one.

Disc 388 is…Space Piper

Artist: Rare Air

Year of Release: 1991

What’s Up With The Cover?: I’ve been known to be unkind to folk album cover art, but this one more than makes up for it. A highlander astronaut in full regalia, plays the pipes on the crag of some far off planet. Yes, technically you couldn’t hear the pipes in the vacuum of space, but this cover is not about what you could technically hear. It is an injection of pure awesome right into the eyes.

Yes, I bought this album for the cover.

How I Came To Know It: In the early nineties I had an insatiable appetite for Celtic folk music and was looking for something new. Through other acts I’d come across Green Linnet records, and knew they signed a lot of eclectic Celtic folk. Looking through their catalogue I found this record, and I bought it for the cover.

How It Stacks Up: This is the only Rare Air album I have, or am ever likely to have.

Rating: 1 star

What a cool album cover! Scottish finery and a space suit! A majestic pose and a tartan flapping in the cosmic wind.

Here the excitement ends, however. “Space Piper” is not your typical folk album, and it seems to take a great deal of delight in making this plain to any listener.

The principle of the record is cool, and what drew me to it; the fusion of space-age jazz with more traditional folk compositions. It even passes one of the key tests for me to enjoy modern jazz, that being I know what styles they are screwing with.

Also, the musicians in Rare Air are clearly talented. They know how to play and they play incredibly tightly despite very intricate arrangements. These guys know their craft. For this reason, it was even more maddening to hear them use their talents for evil.

The ‘evil’ in this case takes the form of a meandering jazz-noodle fest, with just enough penny whistle and bagpipes to leave you wanting more. Most songs have about two minutes of pretty harmony mixed with a nice ambient ‘space’ sound, and then another six minutes of wild jazz imaginings that torture that harmony into something unrecognizable - deliberately. As someone who loves folk music’s simple constructions, it was like the songs were being tortured. I found myself wondering if a jazz enthusiast would feel the same way, only from the opposite perspective.

I have only myself to blame. I read a review before I bought this and it was clear this album was going to be experimental. Even the cover art indicates you are in for some serious crossover. Unfortunately, the cover art is so cool I couldn’t resist taking the risk.

“Space Piper” is instrumental only – voices occur only as ambient background, and once as a poorly imagined narrative that introduces listeners to “Snake MacMurray” on the song of the same name. I believe “Snake” is a composite character of what the band imagines they are doing musically. By track four (where “Snake MacMurray” lurks) if you haven’t figured out what Rare Air is doing you haven’t been listening, but that doesn’t stop the boys from explaining it to you. I think it is supposed to be groovy and whimsical, but I found it patronizing.

This record should be on the ‘sell’ pile five minutes after I finish this review, just like it should have been on my sell pile the last three times I’ve found the mixture of musical bravery and pointless pride to put it on. It deserves to go to the home of someone who likes this kind of music – I’m sure there is someone, and no doubt they would be drawn right in. However, I’m going to keep it. I’d like to say I’m keeping it because I’m going to listen to it from time to time, but the truth is I just really like the cover art. A piper! In space! With bagpipes!

Best tracks: Death Of A Space Piper is 8 minutes long, and pretty damn cool for about five of them.

CD Odyssey Disc 353: Jully Black

This next album is a cautionary tale on how you can't always judge a book by its cover.

Disc 353 is...Revival

Artist: Jully Black

Year of Release: 2007

What’s Up With The Cover?: Jully Black, looking sexy as hell in a micro-short, sexy-as-hell white dress. From her hair down to her shoes, Jully Black is a fine looking woman, and is clearly not afraid to show it. This cover is as good as it gets, but remember the warning in the teaser intro...

How I Came To Know It: This is one of Sheila's albums, and I'm not sure how she heard about it. It was a minor hit in Canada, with a top ten hit ("Seven Day Fool") and won a Juno, so that could be it. I heard it for the first time when Sheila brought it home.

How It Stacks Up: Jully Black has five albums, but this is the only one in our collection so it can't really stack up. It won't be there long, however.

Rating: 1 star.

"Revival" is a soul/RnB record that no doubt imagines itself as a renewal of traditional soul music, but is only the palest imitation of that style. It would be enough to say it fails on all counts, but since this site does music reviews, I will take the time to enumerate them for your horror/enjoyment.

First, let it be said that I'm not a big fan of soul/RnB records, but I do have a few, and I know when they are good. Not so, the mis-named "Revival," which would be more aptly named "Re-Animated." It is the musical equivalent of a zombie: recognizable at a distance as a person, shuffling about, but viewed up close lacking any higher function. It may lurch at you from the shadows of AM radio, but make no mistake - it is not alive.

The music has a beat, but not a pulse. I found most of the compositions on par with the atrocities they make American Idol singers release as their first single; dripping with false emotion, and sounding like they were composed by a committee of Soulless Record Execs.

It is not 100% bad, though, and there are a couple of bright spots, most notably "Queen" which I noted with pleasure was composed by Jully Black herself. Even this song suffers from over-production that strips out a lot of the raw emotion that soul needs to work, but at least the skeleton of the composition is strong. The hit, "Seven Day Fool" has a good beat, and Blacks' best vocal performance on the record, but not much to recommend it beyond that. Apart from these two songs, the album alternates between forgettable and annoying.

"Revival" tries to cover a lot of territory - with Black attempting on some tracks to sound sexy and trampish on "DJ Play My Song," sassy on "Seven Day Fool" and inspirational on "Catch Me When I Fall." The problem is I didn't believe her in any incarnation. On her sexy songs she sounds like a shy girl trying to prove herself otherwise. On her introspective songs she alternates between sounding preachy and like she's in a singing competition where she's focused on impressing the judges by hitting all the notes.

And that may be the worst of all. Female soul singers rely on their incredible voices. Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse and Sharon Jones make you believe everything they sing. These ladies can sing the phonebook and make you think it's the gospel. I recently bought Sheila the new Adele album, and although I started out thinking I'd hate it, the truth is her voice is so amazing that I couldn't help but enjoy the music.

Black doesn't have the kind of range - emotional or otherwise - to bring the otherwise lacklustre songs on "Revival" to life. Compared to a layperson like me her voice is incredible, but compared to other singers in her genre, she is just OK, and the material and production isn't good enough to float the record on its own.

I admire Sheila's interest in this form of music, though - and years before I came to it. She has since agreed this is not a good example of what she was looking for and given me permission to put this album into the 'sell' pile. This is exactly where it is going as soon as I'm finished writing this review.

If you like this 'kind of music' but wish it could be better, there is hope. I strongly recommend Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings and her 2010 release "I Learned The Hard Way" which is much more deserving of your hard-earned money.

Best tracks: Queen