Stranger than Fiction, Larger Than Life: the Finn Brothers song-by-song discussion thread

I think it is a flute sample and I agree it's hilarious; it sounds like one of those Native American New Age CDs, which sound nothing like most Native American music: somehow gentle synth-flute in petatonic scale is supposed to suggest that.

 

Therein lies the pretension - I dunno if the term "Cultural Appropriation" was in the vernacular then, but it's relevant!
It's a sore-thumb of "we're representing something we're not".
I sense the thinking was "evoke the Amazon" or something thereabouts.

edit: Can you tell why I talk about "pretension" a lot?
It tends to come up around me. For some reason.

 

I think the argument is that Manzanera actually is South American, had grown up in Venezuela and Cuba...but yes, it does sound false.

The thing is, albums like The Rhythm of the Saints succeed because they actually do appropriate rather shamelessly, they just present someone else's music and Paul Simon kind of layers his stuff on top...and it works.

This is something different.

 

Today's song is "the Great Leveller" written by Phil Manzanera and Tim Finn, sung, with studied precision, by Gary Dyson.

 

After that on the album there is an instrumental called "Frontera '91." (What the heck? Was this album released in 1990 or 1991? Now my copy says 1991, I'm noticing; but I have been thinking of it as a 1990 record that was actually recorded earlier, in 1988. Oh, well, we are discussing it here. )

Today's song is "The Great Leveller", written by Phil Manzanera and Tim Finn.

 

I get what you are saying.

 

I actually like "The Great Leveller" far less than "A Million Reasons Why." Tim's lyric and the soulful melody both sound like the work of a professional craftsman but lack heart and inspiration in my opinion. And Gary Dyson's vocals are so perfect they suck the life out of whatever rhythm and blues energy actually is inherent in the song.

As for the rest of the song: I do like the horn arrangement in the chorus and the guitar solo at the end saves the song in my opinion, enough so that I'll give it a 2.6/5.

 

I have to apologise to "A Million Reasons Why". Yesterday I was rude enough to call it the weakest track on "Southern Cross". I have skipped "The Great Leveller" for years but just listened to it. Ugh! This sounds like a song that was submitted for an album of "Miami Vice" soundtrack outtakes in the mid-80s, but was rejected for being too bland and lifeless. Terrible! Thankfully, much better tracks on this album are coming up for discussion.

1/5.

 

I got the "Southern Cross" LP as a birthday gift in August 1990, and it had been in the shops for a few weeks by then, so the album was definitely released in mid-1990. I later bought the CD as well and in the booklet it says "Recorded at Gallery Studio, Chertsey 1988-89, mixed at Metropolis studios Nov/Dec 89".

However, there is no track called "Frontera '91" on my copy of the CD. The CD has been re-issued several times with different covers. The edition I have is this one:
Phil Manzanera - Southern Cross

 

As @HitAndRun blazed the trail yesterday, I'll take this opportunity to say that my favourite track on Phil Manzanera's "K-Scope" album from 1978 is "Cuban Crisis" which has Tim on lead vocals, Neil on backing vocals and Eddie Rayner on upright piano. The track can be heard here:

 

Ah, the version I have has a different cover (a much more boring portrait of Manzanera, same as the YouTube clip above), has "Frontera 91" but does not have "Astrud", "Guantanamera" or "Blood Brother."

I have an audio capture MP3 from Youtube of Astrid...Does "Blood Brother" have a Tim credit?

 

No Tim involvement on "Blood Brother", another track I usually skip. It's better than "The Great Leveller" but that is not saying much. "Astrud" on the other hand is great, in my opinion, but we'll get to that track soon.

 

As far as I know, neither of The Makers' albums were released outside Australia/New Zealand. The CD edition of their debut LP was manufactured in Germany so I guess it may have been released there too. I have never seen that album in any European record store I've visited since 1990. The album didn't chart in Australia and I don't think any of its three singles ("Big Picture", "A New Kind of Blue" and "Daylight") did either. Their second and final album, "Hokey Pokey", was released in Australia only in October 1993 (though it incorrectly says on the CD the year was 1992), close to the release of "Together Alone".

 

Both Makers albums are available on iTunes in Europe, FWIW, which is more than I can say for Schnell Fenster or Split Enz.

 

"The Great Leveller" is more of the same, although I like this one a bit more than the first one. It has a stronger melody to me and a nice sound on the verses. The choruses are more of a problem, though. Not a fan of the vocalist, nor of the cheesy guitar solo on the first break, or the backing vocals. There was a promising song in here, but this wasn't it. The lengthy guitar solo on the coda is pretty good, and brings the song's minor strengths forward.

3.0/5

 

I'm mostly with @robcar on this one. It is a 'product' the way it is produced. K-Scope and Listen Now were inventively and interesting arranged albums with some great lead vocalists. (I wish Bill MacCormick had sung more songs of that quality - recommendations gratefully received.) The first guitar solo could be better, but I think it's OK. The second much better.

Again it sounds like a Mike and the Mechanics song to me. But, compared to other M&tM songs, a reasonable one. There are some nice touches, particularly the guitar throughout - not just the solo, though it's a bit subtle through most of the song. The rest of the instrumentation and the vocals are performed competently but they are a bit generic.

I'd much prefer if it were Tim singing it with an acoustic. It sounds a bit Escapade-ish, and I could imagine the song fitting on that album if sung by Tim and produced by Ricky Fataar. Though, it would be one of the less interesting songs on Escapade.

2.8/5

 

"The Great Leveler" is ... a song that exists. I agree with @HitAndRun and @robcat: this feels like "product," something that was constructed to achieve a particular, very generic sound. The "horns" bug me--they sound fake, and when they first come in their tone is a bit jarring. I wasn't a fan of yesterday's song, but I like this one less. My inclination is to reserve a score of "1" for things that are truly execrable, and I don't think "The Great Leveler" falls quite to that level. But it's definitely not good. If things don't improve, this is going to be a long week.

2/5

 

If my memory is correct, and it is frequently shown to be wrong, we might have heard the high points of this album.

 

Oh I don’t think that’s true. There are a couple of more that are on a par with these, Or possibly even worse,but there are also three more songs coming from this album that I like more and two of them I really like.

 

I'll look forward to these. I think I bought this album when it came out and may not have listened to it since. I don't know where my copy is.

 

I have bought and sold this album more times than I can count. Back in the day this was a used bin staple, along with before and after and REM’s monster.

 

This really surprised me. In my opinion, the next five tracks from this album that will be discussed here are all vastly superior to both "A Million Reasons Why" and "The Great Leveller", so I look forward to reading what you think when you hear these tracks again in the next few days.

 

Yes, I'm looking forward to this. The album may well not be as bad as I remember it.

 

Hmm... Stefan's response to "The Great Leveler" resonates. This could be background music from Miami Vice but Glenn Frey, based on his reputation, probably thwarted them from being able to use it on the show and horn in on his action, so instead, this was the background music for a commercial advertising some kind of refreshing fruity beverage that was aired during Miami Vice. It's too damn long for what it is.

2/5

 

I don't think this is too bad judged on what it is. By that I mean that it is so far removed from what I would initially expect from a Neil and Tim thread that it is kind of jarring to hear it here. It is competently sung and performed though and is perfectly respectable for that kind of music.

2.5/5.