Pop – Page 10 – Rock Salted

Bobby Darin – You’re the Reason I’m Living

Bobby Darin – You’re the Reason I’m Living Capitol ST-1866 (1963)

You’re the Reason I’m Living has Bobby Darin crooning over pop country treatments, something experiencing a cross-over surge since the prior year thanks to Ray Charles — people from the traditional pop world like Dean Martin, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gormé, and Darin were trying to capitalize on the fad. Darin had already released one country single (“Things”). Much of the time, a mid- to late-career country recording is a condescending effort to reach out to the rural slums when fickle tastes of urban elites start to pass by a once mighty star, or some equally lame reason (just a few later examples: Nashville Skyline, We Had It All, Almost Blue, Hanky Panky, Honeycomb, …). Of course, Darin sings nicely. He always did. But the music behind him, especially on side two, is no more than an extremely lazy amalgamation of cliches and stereotypes. The horn charts are all homophonic blasts of energy, without any sort of modulation, or for that matter any real purpose specific to these songs. The strings seem to offer only one texture, pointlessly tacked on to a number of songs in a way that smacks of pure happenstance. The vocal chorus backing (“You’re the Reason I’m Living,” “Release Me,” “Here I Am,” “Please Help Me, I’m Falling”) is also that over-used male/female mashup of Gregorian chants and barbershop quartets that soiled recordings a-plenty for many years after WWII. On the plus side, the Hank Williams song “(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle” is not the bleak loner tune it usually is, but an original Icarus-like reading that portrays a dumbfounded big shot tumbling from great heights. “It Keeps Right A-Hurtin'” has a nice soulful country walk that lets Darin sing with as much longing as possible. There is some decent pedal steel guitar (“Now You’re Gone”), and honky tonk piano (“Be Honest With Me”) too. Elsewhere he’s stuck awkwardly between the terrain of a country-tinged, clean-cut heartthrob like Ricky Nelson and a Vegas-style approximation of “Country & Western” music that a showtune star like Debbie Reynolds might have tried. What really drags, though, is the way Darin starts to sing every song the same way. After almost every line, he finishes the last word with the same brooding, sly melisma, stretching and bending the last syllable of each line for heavy-handed emphasis. This is felt most strongly on “Who Can I Count on.” The effect seems like a profoundly calculated and circumscribed attempt to add hints of polite, socially acceptable swagger and palpable, seductive charisma. Unfortunately, though, it comes across at best as an overused affectation and at worst as a crippling limitation on his stylistic range. All that aside, the biggest problem with this album is that it never presents a convincing case for adding glitzy pop orchestration to country songs. It would seem that the producers thought that was what Darin fans expected, even when he was doing a country album, so they are added in without any further deliberation. That rationale, inasmuch as it was consciously or unconsciously used, is specious. Darin, himself, is sort of exactly what he sets out to be: someone who doesn’t respect rigid genre boundaries. That ends up being kind of cool and kind of creepy, actually. His near obsession with awkward, unexpected twists and stylistic combinations is creepy! Anyway, Darin was an interesting character, though much of what he did was sort of a journeyman version of Scott Walker‘s career.

Perfume Genius – Too Bright

Perfume Genius – Too Bright Matador OLE 1028-2 (2014)

Eclectic pop that moves freely from art rock in the style of Mark Hollis (“Fool”) to heavier stuff (“Queen”), plus plenty of somber yet driven ballads almost like Rufus Wainwright. Mike Hadreas, the man behind the Perfume Genius moniker, has an adept faculty for switching styles song-to-song while sounding convincing with each of them — something of a trend of late among many different artists, like Kishi Bashi on Lighght. Well done.

The Persuasions – On the Good Ship Lollipop

The Persuasions – On the Good Ship Lollipop Music for Little People R2 75794 (1999)

Yes!

Elvis Presley – From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee (Recorded Live)

Elvis Presley – From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee (Recorded Live) RCA Victor APL1-1506 (1976)

When people see the late-career Elvis as a bloated, cliched wash-out, they probably have recordings like From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee in mind. Recorded in the campy “Jungle Room” of his own Graceland mansion with mobile recording equipment, these songs reflect a tired soul retreating to a safe haven, away from the world. Mostly lonely heartbreak ballads, these are bleak songs. You can feel Elvis’ connection to the mood. Yet, the main limitation is the slapdash quality of the instrumental music behind The King, offering mostly a cookie-cutter countrypolitan sheen with treacly strings that bowl over the nuance in the vocals. In a way, the backing tries to take depressing songs and make them cheerier, which is entirely counterproductive. Elvis’ band members were already seeking other opportunities. It seems like supporting him was becoming a low priority for them. Though in fairness Elvis provided little direction and the cramped recording locale hardly helped. The net result is to make this album a little dull. It won’t convince anyone of the real depths of the man’s talents. Yet, if you make an effort there are some worthwhile things here, and Elvis does sing reasonably well.

It’s fascinating to compare the careers of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. Both came from rural origins and both broke through on Sam Phillips‘ Sun Records in Memphis. Both developed drug problems in the face of grueling touring schedules and the enormous pressures of the entertainment industry. Elvis became a movie star and then jumped right back into music full time with a fascinating TV special. Cash hosted his own TV musical variety show and then toured with a large revue show not unlike Elvis’ breakthrough Vegas act. By the end of the 1970s both stars had faded. Cash made a comeback in the 1990s, while Elvis had made one himself in the late 60s. Of course, the two stars couldn’t have had more different personalities. Cash had a reputation for always insisting on doing things his own way, while Presley was timid and non-confrontational when it came to his career.

When Johnny Cash made his comeback, it was by mining the darker elements of his music, with faddish attempts to sound “current” taken away to leave just a raw, “authentic” folk sound. In a way, Elvis was also mining the darker aspects of his music shortly before his death, but his handlers didn’t seem to understand how to deal with that kind of approach. Someone should go back and strip out the harps, string orchestration, stuffy horns, and some of the backing vocals (much like what was done on Naked Willie), and maybe even re-record new backing instrumentals (the approach of Guitar Man), because there is definitely something to be found in Elvis’ performances here of value, if separated out from everything weighing them down.

Willie Nelson – Always on My Mind

Willie Nelson – Always on My Mind Columbia FC 37951 (1982)

Willie’s star soared in the late 1970s and early 80s. Red Headed Stranger was a big hit, but Stardust blew it away with multi-platinum sales. Riding high on that success Willie even began an acting career, culminating in a starring role in the film Honeysuckle Rose. However, after Stardust he had released mostly soundtracks and niche albums like a holiday one, a gospel one, a tribute to Kris Kristofferson and an assortment of duet/collaboration outings. He also issued what remained for a long time his definitive “best of” compilation: Greatest Hits (& Some That Will Be).

Always on My Mind proved to be Willie’s highest-charting album, and one of the best selling releases of his entire career. He still had chart-busters left in him, but this represented the high-water mark of his popularity. It also marked another departure for him, in a career that always veered (or some might say lurched) in unpredictable directions. This was the arrival of Willie the 80s pop singer.

Producer Chips Moman comes on board. He would work with Nelson a lot in the coming years. Moman has an uneasy legacy, in hindsight often criticized for his clinical, overproduced destruction of numerous albums, from Townes Van Zandt in the late 1970s to The Highwaymen and Johnny Cash in the 1980s. But, that legacy aside, Always on My Mind is among his more durable efforts (eclipsed of course by Elvis‘ From Elvis in Memphis). He lets this ride on the strength of the performances rather than a suffocatingly synthetic layer of studio and mixing gimmicks. Willie is singing lots of pop and rock fare, tending toward lighter, slow-burn ballads and torch songs. These are much much more contemporary tunes than on Stardust. He takes somewhat of a cue from Elvis, who recorded the title track, Simon & Garfunkel‘s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Let It Be Me (Je t’appartiens)” during his 70s comeback. Willie possibly edges out The King on the title track, though Willie hits the top of his vocal range on “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and noticeably can’t go as high as he seems to want to go (no pun intended). Much of the material is well-selected, like “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” and Procol Harum‘s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” A couple of obligatory re-recordings of old Nelson hits make appearances as well. One can forgive, somewhat, the fact that Moman seems to be pushing a few too many of his own songs because they happen to work, particularly the opener with its guest appearance by Waylon Jennings. But this album does exhibit some serious lapses in judgment. When a saxophone enters on “Let It Be Me,” it is as if Gato Barbieri stumbled into Nelson’s recording session amidst a marijuana haze and thought he was redoing the Last Tango In Paris soundtrack, or somebody was warming up for the “Lethal Weapon” soundtrack. That sax (from John Marett) is probably the album’s biggest liability. It is unredeemable.

If Always on My Mind represented some of the worst tendencies of Willie Nelson’s music in the coming decade, it would be hard to tell from this evidence alone. At its best, this ends up being one of his stronger pop outings. Aside from some slight unevenness, it delivers a classic in the title track and has enough other successes to keep things interesting. Warts and all, this is probably something that will appeal to casual fans of pop music, even without any particular interest in the artist, and ranks as a worthwhile second-tier Willie Nelson effort for the fan.

Willie Nelson – City of New Orleans

Willie Nelson – City of New Orleans Columbia CK 39145 (1984)

This turd of an album went platinum, which is more an indication of Willie Nelson’s overall name recognition in 1984 than the quality of City of New Orleans in and of itself. Willie is in easy listening mode, again. Chips Moman produces, and he ruins yet another recording with oppressively sterile sound. Listeners won’t doubt for even a second that this album was from the mid-80s. In truth some of the performances — like the title track — aren’t bad. But does anyone need to hear Willie do “Wind Beneath My Wings?” Ever?

Willie Nelson – A Horse Called Music

Willie Nelson – A Horse Called Music Columbia CK 45046 (1989)

More pop than country, A Horse Called Music finds Mr. Willie Nelson mastering the synthetic sounds of 1980s pop. That’s right. This one is much more of a pop record than a country one. There are strings and lush background vocals on much of it, returning to country briefly, such as for yet another rendition of his “Mr. Record Man” and the opener. This thing fairly reeks of the 1980s, yet, the songs are by and large much better choices than on so many of his other albums of the era. He’s also singing fairly well. “Is The Better Part Over” was written five years earlier about Nelson’s third marriage to Connie, the wife his band liked best. “Nothing I Can Do About It Now” was the hit, Nelson’s last really big one until a duet with Toby Keith more than a decade later, but it’s really one of the lesser cuts on the album. The best stuff here is actually the orchestrated traditional pop. It does bear mentioning that this has one of the most amazing album covers on any Willie Nelson album, and the title is quite funny too.

DEVO – Pioneers Who Got Scalped: The Anthology

DEVO – Pioneers Who Got Scalped: The Anthology Rhino R2 75967 (2000)

Well, Pioneers Who Got Scalped is a real mixed bag. Disc one starts out great, but listening to disc two is a real chore. In their early days, DEVO had sharp songwriting skills and a clever, absurdist sense of humor. People call them a punk band, but I see them more as a disco band strongly influenced by punk rock–not that those genre distinctions really matter. The band’s earliest recordings that open disc one satirize popular culture, often by way of clever new arrangements of well-known pop songs that frequently deploy mechanized, angular rhythms. However, all that didn’t last. By disc two, though it is apparent towards the end of disc one as well, the band just ran out of ideas. Their recordings were still well-crafted but their songwriting became confined to unremarkably generic 1980s synth-pop, their sense of humor common. I suppose it becomes difficult to skewer pop culture the more you become a part of mainstream pop culture. And looking back it is hard to see DEVO as anything but a part of mainstream pop culture, from “Whip It” onward at least.

Brandi Carlile – Bear Creek

Brandi Carlile – Bear Creek Columbia 88691 96122 2 (2012)

This album is all over the place. At least she got through the checklist of styles drawn up before recording this… A good part of it resides in the same indie/alt-country territory as the likes of Neko Case and Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins. But it also swings over to the realm of synthetic indie pop a bit like Metric. Oh, and more than that. Her vocals have the same white girl singing like a black gospel/soul singer vibe that Amy Winehouse, Adele (whatever her last name is), Elton John and others have used. “That Wasn’t Me” is the minor hit, and it’s good. “Save Part of Yourself” works well too. But much of this seems unable to offer anything on its own, instead burdened with having to cover as much territory as possible. The biggest liability is how this was recorded, in a way that takes the edges out and remains non-committal. Carlile might have some potential if a great producer took her in and guided her to stronger material and a sound of her own.

David Bowie – The Best of David Bowie 1980/1987

David Bowie – The Best of David Bowie 1980/1987 EMI 09463-86587-2-6 (2007)

The Eighties were when Bowie took a turn for the worse. He was still popular, but quality wasn’t always there. That said, there is actually some good stuff here, but it’s not enough to fill out the disc. I would rather have a “Best of 1980/2010.” [Note: this collection was originally part of The Platinum Collection]