Entries Tagged 'Reviews' ↓

First thing’s first here:  this cover sucks.  I seriously think it might be one of the worst album covers ever made, mainly because it makes Dean Martin look like a douche, and in real life he never looked that goofy.  They’ve got him dressed up in some lame outfit and on top of it whoever created this is making look like he’s dancing a jig.  It’s just horrible.  I keep wondering if Dean had to sign off on this cover or if it was just something the record company pushed through.  The thing is I’m convinced that if they had used a photograph instead of a drawing he could have pulled it off.  Don’t believe me?  Check out how cool the guy looks for his country album:

Okay so enough about the cover.  The concept of Swingin’ Down Yonder is that Dean is doing songs associated with the American south.  It’s such a bizarre release from someone associated with Italian love songs, but the guy absolutely nails it.  The songs are lighthearted without being silly and it doesn’t contain a single moment where you roll your eyes in embarassment.  The music is created by traditional instruments instead of Dino’s usual orchestral music and his voice blends with it perfectly.  The only complaint I have is with the bonus tracks included on the re-release that I have; they don’t fit in with the concept and it’s a little jarring when they start, but really that’s a small quibble.

There are a lot of good Dean Martin albums but I would rank this among my top two or three studio albums.  Despite the terrible cover and the odd concept this is a great display of his talent.

Without any conscious effort I’ve somehow ended up with all of Ozzy’s studio albums and that trend certainly didn’t stop with his recent release Scream. So despite having all of them I got a little hazy on what he did after No More Tears and had to look it up on Wikipedia.  That says a lot about his recent output - I never thought anything was terrible but not particularly memorable.  Down to Earth was so boring I completely forgot about its existance.

Unfortunately the same holds true for Scream.  It certainly sounds like an Ozzy Osbourne album and I suppose there’s a certain amount of comfort in that like revisiting an old friend.  The problem is that there’s nothing particularly outstanding on it so many of the songs just seem interchangable.  Part of the problem may be that the songs on the album were co-written by Osbourne, producer Kevin Churko, and keyboardist Adam Wakeman.  I had high hopes when I saw that guitarist Gus G was added to Osbourne’s band, but his abscence from the writing credits translates into boring guitar parts throughout the album.  Plodding, repetitive riffs are the norm here, and not in a good Tony Iommi way either.  If Ozzy puts out another studio album I would hope that Gus G gets a more active role in writing which should result in a better product.

There are a couple of bright spots though.  “I Want It More” is better than most of the stuff on his recent albums, and the first two songs are good but not great.  I’m going to see Ozzy at the Sprint Center in January and I’m hoping these songs translate better live than they do in the studio.

The story with Seventh Star is that it was originally supposed to be a Tony Iommi solo album but due to urging from the record label it was released under the unfortunate name “Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi”.  The album is overall less heavy than a typical Black Sabbath album and in some spots a lot more radio friendly (for better or worse).  Despite that, it’s always been my favorite non-Dio Sabbath album.  Glenn Hughes’ vocals (again, which aren’t anything like anything Sabbath has had before) are typical of mid-80s metal but there’s something about the band that clicks.  Every song is strong - I even like “No Stranger to Love” which seems to be the one everybody hates.  Even now, 25 years later I’ll occasionally pull it out and really enjoy listening to it.

This month Sanctuary released a deluxe edition of Seventh Star, adding the US remix of “No Stranger to Love” and a second disc of a live show performed by new vocalist Ray Gillan, who joined after Glenn Hughes left after the beginning of the tour.  First off the new version of “No Stranger to Love” is horrible, it adds even more 80s production (keyboards and female background vocals) to a song that really didn’t need it.  The live disc is interesting at best.  The sound quality isn’t that great and the performance is average.  I’m a huge fan of Ray Gillan’s work in Badlands and had high hopes for this but it doesn’t deliver.

I can’t really recommend the deluxe version, which runs about $32.00 at Amazon which is a little steep.  If you’ve already got the album the new material doesn’t warrant picking it up again and if you don’t have it just get a used copy of the original off Amazon.

Obviously this odd release coincides with the release of Richards’ autobiography Life, which arrived at the McKeon household this week and is now in the reading queue behind Gravity’s Rainbow, The Stand, Chris Jericho’s book, and possibly Dave Mustaine’s.  Essentially this is a best-of compilation of the two studio albums and one live album by his side project The X-Pensive Winos, with an odd bonus track, the one minute and change song “Hurricane.”  Again, I realize this was put out as a cash grab for the book, but was anyone really demanding this?

As a best-of compilation, it’s fine, including the singles from the studio albums and some of the better tracks along with live versions of Keith’s Rolling Stones songs.  If you wanted an overview of his solo career this would do it and you wouldn’t necessarily need to hunt out the full albums themselves, except the live one which I love.  “Hurricane” is something interesting to listen to one or two times but I can’t see myself interested in it beyond that.  It’s a solo acoustic piece that doesn’t really go anywhere within its confines.

Back in 2007 Rhino put out a Mick Jagger solo compilation that was really nice, a combination of tracks from his studio albums and a fair amount of hard to find stuff like “Dancing in the Streets” with David Bowie and “Checkin’ Up On My Baby” with the Red Devils.  I don’t know how much of this sort of thing is available for Keith Richards but ideally this release would have been more like that.  At the very least I would have liked “Run Run Rudolph” on it.

One of my least favorite concert trends to pop up in the past few years is playing a classic album from start to finish.  I know Iron Maiden and Judas Priest have done it, and recently Megadeth and Slayer went on tour together doing just that.  When I saw Ratt last year they performed Out of the Cellar and it was a let down.  I prefer not to know what songs are coming up in the set - the suprise of what’s coming up next is one of the things that I enjoy.

When I heard that Roger Waters was coming to Kansas City to perform The Wall, I wasn’t interested at all.  I don’t like the whole gimmick of playing an entire album and I saw Roger Waters at Kemper Arena somewhere in the 2000 - 2001 timeframe.  It was a great show and I didn’t feel the need to see him again.

I changed my mind once the reviews of the current tour started coming in.  Every one I read was positive and the show sounded more interesting than a typical concert.  I’m really glad I went - the show was incredible, much better than I thought it would be.

I’m not going to get into details on the show, I don’t want to spoil anything for someone who hasn’t gone.  I don’t go for gimmicky props in a concert, but the use of props on stage (mostly the wall that was partially build before the show and was slowly built onto until the end of the first act) and animations were beyond anything I have seen at a show before.  The whole presentation was great and also made the 30+ year old material feel relevant and fresh.  Even the intermission in the middle felt right for the show although it did run a little too long.

I would say the only negative about the show is that for all the visuals the music - and especially the backup musicians - got pushed to the background a bit.  That’s really a small quibble because the musicians were right on and did a great job.

After the show I started thinking about this one versus his concert here in town several years back.  Both were great and I really think you can’t even compare the two.  One was more of a straightforward concert and was about performing the music and this was more about giving the audience a show.  I’m really glad I went to both and came away from each one with something different.

Seriously, I would recommend this show to anyone with even a passing interest in the material.  There is so much happening that even if you’re not that crazy about the music you would still be entertained.