A few heavy hitters released in the latter part of 1980 show up in this issue, along with a typical mix of picks and pans. I would have been halfway through my junior year of high school. Somehow I had been elected class president that year, and I suspect prom planning was well under way when I first read through this.
Article
An Audiophile's Guide to Videocassette Recorders, by Ellen Milhan Klein
It's regularly amusing to look back at what was once on the frontier technologically, but this one strikes particularly. The subtitle in the Table of Contents? "Choosing a VCR is at least as complicated as choosing a hi-fi system." I didn't purchase my first VCR until 1992, and I'm shocked to reflect on just how expensive it was then (and they cost three to four times as much a decade earlier).
This month's reviewers are Chris Albertson, Irv Cohn, Noel Coppage, Phyl Garland, Paul Kresh, Peter Reilly, Steve Simels, and Joel Vance.
Best of the Month
--The Amazing Rhythm Aces, How the Hell Do You Spell Rythum? (NC) "Their whole approach is fundamental to start with, in the sense of sticking close to the main sources of rock: basic black and basic white, commonly called blues or r-&-b and country…the album never strays far from either and ends with a probe back into each with gospel overtones…"
--Ron Carter, New York Slick (CA) "…the album proves…it is a fallacy to believe that one of our favorite musics has nowhere to go but into the nearest electric socket…Carter can not only distinguish real jazz from the polyester kind, but he also knows how to utilize a vast talent resource that goes largely to waste these days."
--Donny Hathaway, In Performance (PG) "A special element of this recording I the audience; they are noisy, they talk back…they are part of the performance, too—as they are with all gospel music, even when it hides under the trappings of r-&-b. With the release of this album, the historical record can now be set a bit straighter about what this young artist contributed in his few productive years."
Featured Reviews
--ABBA, S/T (SS) "(This) videodisc finds the band lip-synching twelve of their better-known numbers…in a variety of silly setting ranging from fake discos to a snowy Scandinavian wilderness right out of a Woody Allen Bergman parody. None of it is terribly imaginative, but it is endearing in a dopey way."
--Giants of Jazz: Earl Hines (JV) "The only word for Hines' solo recordings is eternal. The fusing of a musical machine and its operator has seldom been so successful…"
--Etta James, Changes (JV) Admirers of Millie Jackson's rasping, sexy vocals should listen to Ms. James, who mastered that style some time ago…she's absolutely wonderful and deserves to be much more widely heard."
--Carmen McRae/George Shearing, Two for the Road (PR) "No lapses, no ambling, no uphill struggle to work up strong feeling for a 'show-me' audience. Just Carmen and accompanist George Shearing, ideal audiences for each other…"
--John Prine, Storm Windows (NC) "So, compared with Prine's last outing (Pink Cadillac), this one shows he's centering…The sound pretty well follows Prine and the songs around, maybe not moving to the center much, but circling it, centering by averaging."
--Bruce Springsteen, The River (SS) "A Springsteen album used to be a daring tightrope act. For The River, however, he used a net…two verses into (the songs) and you've heard all you need to hear—there's no sense of urgency, they don't go anywhere. With all that said, the odd thing is that The River still packs quite a wallop."
--Stevie Wonder, Hotter Than July (Zita Allen) "…has that delicate balance between energetic, uptempo tunes and soul-stroking ballads that we had come to expect…this rewarding release should at least satisfy those doubting Thomases were afraid that Stevie Wonder had lost his touch."
Recordings of Special Merit
--Bus Boys, Minimum Wage Rock & Roll (SS) ",,,a bright, funny little rock band on the fringes of the New Wave all but one of whose members just happen to be black. The irony of this situation is not lost on them, and their songs have a wise-guy edge that is particularly winning."
--The Clash, Black Market Clash (SS) "What the package demonstrates, though, is the Clash's maturation as a band. It may be critical heresy to say it, but they have grown by leaps and bounds."
--Steve Gibbons Band, Street Parade (JV) "…deliciously vicious and hilarious and a good thing altogether. Try him."
--Jimmy Hall, Touch You (JV) "…a Southern rocker with a fine brawling voice that is very comfortably settled in the down-home-raunch style, and he has an excellent backing band."
--High Inergy, Hold On (IC) "If you want to guarantee the spice of life in an LP, get some good producers, arrangers, and engineers who know how to let a song develop according to its own dictates, then get three good female vocalists and give them each a turn at singing lead."
--Loleatta Holloway, Love Sensation (PG) "Had she begun her ascent ten years ago, she might have been heralded as a new soul diva, and two or three decades ago she might have followed the lead of Dinah Washington, combining blues, r-&-b, and pop…a disco album for people who don't like disco."
--Bert Jansch Conundrum, Thirteen Down (NC) "As a kind of music, it's hard to describe: the art-song kinship to some English folk music is suggested, and so are a Continental flavor and, sometimes, an approach to a quiet kind of jazz…This album won't incite anyone to riot, or even to boogy, but there are other things in life."
--Monty Python, Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album (SS) "By way of a finale, there's a children's choir singing the inspirational hymn 'All Things Dull and Ugly,' which should be required listening for all card-carrying members of the Moral Majority…This is wonderfully sick stuff, and I heartily recommend it."
--Ray Goodman & Brown, II (PG) "Rather than seeking startling new ways of doing things, this trio…continues to exemplify the old values that gave male soul groups a certain specialness…(they) are devout practitioners of an old and dignified art, emphasizing sweetness of sound and an unabashed sentimentality in lyrics."
Other Disks Reviewed
--David Bowie, Scary Monsters (SS) "No, what galls me about the guy is that he is absolutely incapable of laughing at itself…The songs are murky, ponderous, and tricked up with instrumental work by guests Robert Fripp (no bundle of laughs either, come of think of it) and Pete Townshend (who should know better)…"
--The Cars, Panorama (NC) "The Cars burn up a lot of calories trying to appear to have it, but their mixture is too lean and their spark is weak."
--Cheap Trick, All Shook Up (SS) "As a teenybop ensemble, they're undoubtedly better than they need to be, but by normal criteria this remains an average heavy-metal band trapped by a concept only slightly less limiting than that of Kiss."
--John Cougar, Nothin' Matters and What If It Did (JV) "Cougar's lyrics are better than average, but he's young and still being a tough guy, and we've all heard hardboiled stories like these before…(a)n okay album."
--Steve Forbert, Little Stevie Orbit (NC) "In other sets of hands, these songs could have turned out cute and cuddly; Forbert and his backers manage to make them more than that, but I wish he hadn't let his mind alone so much."
--Joe Jackson Band, Beat Crazy (SS) "It is all needlessly monochromatic, static, and in general very little fun. Which seems to be the point."
--Jack Jones, Don't Stop Now (PR) "…may never make it with the patrons of the classier discos, but I'm sure he couldn't care less. He's had it made, on his own terms, for years."
--Melissa Manchester, For the Working Girl (PK) "As if the dripping words and drippier tunes were not enough, Manchester's voice, a creditable enough instrument, is fairly drowned in the various instrumental gurglings, buzzings, plunkings, and wailings that wash over this litany of laments."
--Yes, Drama (NC) "Personnel changes are forcing Yes to sound slightly more down to earth, slightly less grandiose and humorless than it used to…Still, if you listen to what little song there is in a given cut you'll find that the old values prevail, chief among them being a commitment to the decorations rather than the thing being decorated."
