After picking up The Dream of the Blue Turtles and with more money sitting in my iTunes account it was inevitable that I’d go trolling for more music from my youth. My latest re-acquisitions, in order of re-purchase with the original release date:
- Boney M, Nightflight to Venus (1978)
- Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms (1985)
- Roxy Music, Avalon (1982)
I’ll rate the quality of each re-purchase on a scale of 1 to 10 Neil Diamond sparkle shirts, with 1 being “I plead temporary insanity” and 10 being “Still awesome, I had the best musical taste!”
Boney M, Nightflight to Venus
This album came out in 1978 and I bought it on vinyl when it was new, making it one of my first-ever music purchases. This doubles as a handy excuse in case the album is awful.
Surprisingly, it is not. Despite the silly title track (which is literally about a “night flight” to Venus) the album as a whole holds up quite decently, even if it is very much a product of its era, when disco was at its commercial (and artistic?) peak. The harmonies are sweet and though the songs often border on the bizarre (“Rasputin” celebrate “Russia’s greatest love machine”) they are just as often catchy. You will probably never hear a funkier version of “King of the Road.”
Bonus: I first bought this album on vinyl, which is now popular with hipsters and audiophiles but is otherwise a niche format. The iTunes album art is a photo of the CD case. CDs are also rapidly becoming obsolete in this age of digital music, so it seems somehow fitting that the cover of this musical relic is of another musical relic (May 17, 2022 note: original link broke, I have subbed something that is close to it):
Rating:
7/10 Neil Diamond sparkle shirts
Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms
This was one of the first CDs I bought, and it is of (pop) cultural significance in a couple of ways. It was the first CD to sell over a million copies–the format had debuted only two years earlier), it was such a giant success it basically ended the band and the hit “Money for Nothing” got banned in Canada because of the following lyric (which is delivered by the song’s narrator, a working class slob who ain’t exactly, y’ know, cultured):
Look at that faggot with the earring and the make-up
Yeah buddy, that’s his own care
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot, he’s a millionaire
The best part is the ban happened in 2011, 26 years after the song was released. The ban was later lifted. Details in this Wikipedia entry.
The album holds up very well. This is Dire Straits not only at its commercial peak but its artistic peak, as well. The songs–often sprawling on the CD version–are played with confidence, moving effortlessly between irreverent, rollicking and meditative. There’s a folksiness to much of the work that never feels forced. There is a timelessness to most of the tracks that lifts them above much of the material that dominated the pop charts in the mid-80s. Kids may wonder what all the talk about MTV playing music videos is all about, though.
Rating:
8/10 Neil Diamond sparkle shirts
Roxy Music, Avalon
This album was introduced to me several years after release by a friend. I was not familiar with Roxy Music and have never bought any of their other albums (the friend picked up some of Bryan Ferry’s solo work).
Avalon is one of those albums where everything came together in the right way at the right time. A lot of people who may be able to name Avalon as a Roxy Music album might be challenged to even name another the band put out (Avalon was their eighth and final album). This was the culmination of their smooth, adult-oriented rock sound and in a way they had nowhere to go after this, so the dissolution of the band following the Avalon tour makes sense.
To say this album is smooth is an understatement. The music washes over you like a gentle surf, lush synthesizers sweeping across the aural landscape, accented by guitar, keyboard and saxophone that complement but never intrude or dominate the sound. Ferry’s vocals are delivered just as smoothly, his voice often rising into a dreamy sort of falsetto as he warbles about the tragedies of love.
Somehow the production manages to avoid sounding fey or slick, perhaps because of the earnestness (I almost want to say conviction) Ferry brings to the material.
While there is nothing really comparable to Avalon in today’s pop music scene (that I’m aware of) the album still doesn’t sound dated to me. It is its own thing and a wonderful, lush thing it is.
Rating:
8/10 Neil Diamond sparkle shirts
On balance, it appears I had decent musical taste 25-30 years ago. I’ve still got money in my iTunes account and have been casting back to other albums of yore I haven’t re-acquired. I may have another to re-review soon™.
