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Nilsson: Son of Schmilsson

Rating: 5.8/10
Rated as: Album
Album Status: for Fans
Released: 1972
Specific Genre: Pop, Pop Rock
Main Genre: Pop
Undertones: Rock&Roll, Baroque Pop, Country Pop, Vaudeville Pop, Traditional Pop, Orchestral Pop, Folk Pop
Label: RCA Victor

1 Take 54 2 Remember (Christmas) 3 Joy 4 Turn on Your Radio 5 You’re Breakin‘ My Heart 6 Spaceman 7 The Lottery Song 8 At My Front Door 9 Ambush 10 I’d Rather Be Dead 11 The Most Beautiful World in the World
Bonus Tracks: 12 What’s Your Sign? 13 Take 54 14 Campo de Encino 15 Daybreak

Now this time through, we want everybody to listen to the punchline

Nilsson had hit it big time with the predecessor Schmilsson (1971), but as the B-movie theme of this son-of-album suggests, that success in hindsight might be something like the real life equivalent of The Dude actually getting his rug back. On Son of Schmilsson, Nilsson still straddles the thin line of parody vs. rip-off successfully for the most part, though the sleep-walking confidence is replaced with the lumbering gait of a very lucky drunkard. Evenly divided into earnest, sentimental crooner-anthems of traditional pop or vaudevillian ditties on the on hand and, on the other hand, straight rock&roll parodies, self-referential and thoroughly camp in nature, this album is a showcase of executing (in both senses) genre-stereotypes. Suspicion arises this might work better rated as straight comedy, not music.

While the actual fluff like the wannabe-Crosby-christmas of „Remember“ or the Beach Boys/calypso sent-up of “The Most Beautiful World in the World” makes me chuckle faintly, his stab at wistful country pop ballads, “Joy”, is possibly one of his funniest songs, especially when the cowboy runs out of ways to explain the cycle of relationships: “Things went good, things went bad. Good. Bad. Good, bad. Guuh, baaahhh, guh-bah…”. And „Turn on Your Radio“ or „The Lottery Song“ prove again just how closely Nilsson listened to Lennon/McCartney’s folk pop songcraft of „Blackbird“ or „I Will“ – nowhere near that quality though. These musically competent statements are nothing new to Nilsson and nothing he hadn’t done better before.

But in line with an album containing actual burps, ironic audienc-cheering and someone gurgling liquids and spitting them out as a rhythmic device, almost all the other songs are genre exercises and could be titled „Son of Country Pop“, „Son of Baroque Pop“, „Son of Rock&Roll #2“ or „Son of McCartney“ and so on. If Zappa is Ween’s direct antecedent, Nilsson is their silly uncle. The genre exercises are the interesting aspect of the record, though for different reasons. As mentioned, „Joy“ just is a terrific send-up – a caricature, but highly listenable. After the gorgeously gentle „Turn on Your Radio“, the rocking revenge boogie „You’re Breaking My Heart“ features lines like „You’re breaking my heart / you tear it apart – so fuck you“. This is 1972, show me something like this on, say, Exile on Main St. and I’ll show you Lennon’s coked up drinking buddy. Then show me something like this on a record targeting unsuspecting Burt Bacharach-fans and I’ll show you a bewildered Nilsson: ‘You didn’t get the Schmilsson-message the first time? Well, fuck you.’

The beatlesque „Ambush“ is an inconspicuous piece of baroque pop rock grandeur – really one of Nilsson’s quasi-highlights, with the project idea being: What if “Hey Jude” didn’t quite work, wouldn’t that be fun? Nilsson makes a point of purposely dulling down the song, taking way too obviously long with his endless crowd-cheering („Alright… alright… alright…… alright…“). Still, give it a quasi-spin! „I’d Rather Be Dead“ is silly filler vaudeville pop, „The Most Beautiful World in the World“ is just a general fuck-you to album closers, utilising a deranged calypso pop hook violated by Mary Poppins – Nilsson concludes this quasi-concept album about being a quasi-slave to pop culture (productively and receptively) with another musical nod to cheap sequels: „See you next album!“.

So indeed, there’s a lot of pop competence and a lot of bitter meta-jokes on this album. I didn’t even mention the albums’ best song, the bouncy and indirectly media-critical pop rock of „Spaceman“, since it simply is not the focus of interest: More than half of the album is Nilsson gleefully goofing off, unwilling to care for quality if it doesn’t just happen.

David Bowie: Lodger

Rating: 5.0/10
Rated as: Album
Album Status: for Fans, of Historical Interest
Released: 1979
Specific Genre: Art Rock
Main Genre: Rock
Undertones: Art Pop, Worldbeat, New Wave
Label: RCA Victor

1 Fantastic Voyage 2 African Night Flight 3 Move On 4 Yassassin 5 Red Sails 6 D.J. 7 Look Back in Anger 8 Boys Keep Swinging 9 Repetition 10 Red Money

Can you hear it fall? Can you hear it well? Can you hear it at all?

Thus, after all the Berlinnovation that was part neurotic pop overkill and part ambient art rock, Bowie’s back to albums where the single is the best thing about it. With „Look Back in Anger“ being by far the most captivating song on here (if only because it sounds like a left-over from Station to Station), the listener isn’t left with much else to admire. Lodger is an album filled with unwelcome leftovers of an overcharged party: So many quirky worldbeat ideas in the production, so many ways to subvert the usual verse-chorus-structure, just so much of anything: nothing here has a lively spark. This is what you get if you put the two brains inventing the sound of the 1980s in a jar.

Surprisingly, there are two tracks that are blueprints for the sound of Blur. „Boys Keep Swinging“ is the (less exciting, but nonetheless) direct mother of Blur‘s song „M.O.R.“, and the eerie, driven „Repetition“ is like a submerdged sonic blueprint for the whole Parklife album. Bowie’s imprint on Blur is evident elsewhere anyhow, but who would’ve thought that of all his albums, this is the one Albarn had on the top shelf. Odd. This makes it an essential purchase for historically interested Blur fans like me. [Afterthought: It’s not as odd as I used to think, Bowie/Eno have now received writing credits after „legal intervention“.]

Bowie is tired on this album and who can blame him after 1977. „Red Money“ is Bowie’s own irritatingly crummy version of the great „Sister Midnight“ he wrote and produced for Iggy Pop. It is basically the intstrumental base track with different lyrics, sounding limp and canned. „Red Sails“ is an inferior Neu! track with Bowie-vocals and less interesting guitars than any Neu! track ever had (hold your horses: I’m not saying Adrian Belew isn’t exciting, he’s one of my favourites. But he’s worse at being Michael Rother than Rother himself). Many things here, including the in a sense exciting and strange worldbeat innovations, simply sound very forced. It is squeezed, pressure-grouted Bowie, so to speak.

Taking a look at the grand scheme of things for a second, one could say that Lodger is the ultimate transition album from the 1970s to the 1980s – in a rather backwards sense: It portrays what didn’t work as well anymore in the 1970s and foreshadows what wouldn’t be that great about the 1980s. Essential for historical reasons.

Tok Tok Tok: 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

Rating: 4.6/10
Rated as: Album
Album Status: for Fans
Released: 1999
Specific Genre: Vocal Jazz
Main Genre: Jazz
Undertones: Soul Jazz, Pop Soul, Soul
Label: Einstein

1 Monkey-See and Monkey-Do 2 Alone Again 3 Day Tripper 4 I’ll Never Fall in Love Again 5 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover 6 Crime of Crimes 7 The Jack 8 Straighten Up and Fly Right 9 I Wish 10 Her Majesty 11 Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child 12 Hallelujah 13 Boogie Woogie Bossa Nova

Love is monkey-see and monkey-do

A stylish little combo somewhere between soul and jazz, consisting (almost) exclusively of a vocalist, a double bass and a saxophone, with an occasional human beatbox serving as percussion. Tokunbo Akinro’s vocals are smooth and convincing, the resulting minimalist sound being the concept here works surprisingly well. They do covers of jazz, jazz-pop, pop and soul standards, with a heavy focus on the 1970s. Highlights are Paul Simon’s title track and Stevie Wonder’s „I Wish“, still pretty funky even in this stripped-down arrangement. This low-key, acoustic approach makes for a quite consistent quality of the different performances, their smoothified-funk-sound really only goes awry on „Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child“, where spark and soul are tossed aside. But overall, this is pleasant and heartfelt background soul jazz by a talented band. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that all moments of these 59 and a half minutes, feeling like cover-song warm ups here and there, are all equally exciting.