That's a good list too. I have 14 of those, and enjoy those too. It's just a reminder of the breadth of music at any given time, but for some reason a certain year brings to mind a certain sound that you associate with that year, but doesn't encapsulate the whole year. It was a big year for harder edged music too Motorhead Ace Of Spades Iron Maiden's debut Rush Permanent Waves Acdc Back In Black obviously crossed over to the charts Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell Judas Priest British Steel Saxon released two album Sabbath Heaven and Hell with Dio Thin Lizzy Chinatown Van Halen, Def Leppard's earlier pre-pop metal stuff, MSG, Whitesnake, Nugent Gillan, Triumph, Pat Benatar Then in the alternate and punk side of things Dead Kennedy's debut Clash Sandinista Echo and the Bunneymen Crocodiles Killing Joke Devo Freedom Of Choice The Birthday Party, debut album under that name, Rather than the previous Boys Next Door, with the brilliant Shivers single The Cure Seventeen Seconds Peter Gabriel 3 U2 Boy Of course Adam and the Ants, Kings Of The Wild Frontier as we've discussed Kate Bush, Joy Division, Beefheart's last album, The Jam, It's easy to forget how much great music we have had on any given year, because the mood of the day often masks all the other stuff floating around
At the time those years, 1979 in particular, though the industry was not in good shape. From NY Times 8/1979: "The 54 billion‐a‐year record business, after 25 years of nearly uninterrupted growth, has suddenly run into a period of faltering sales, staff cuts‐and general demoralization. Although record executives differ in their assessment of the extent and causes of the industry's troubles, all of them suggest that the days of strong, steady growth of the pop‐music industry may be over. And some fear, that the situation, it it continues, may affect the ability of record labels to sign and promote new artists." Also, Arista was sold by Columbia Pictures to a German label Ariola in 1979. I wonder how that affected both Davis and Davies. Arista kept losing money and by 1983 Ariola sold it. Guess to who? Why RCA of course. I never knew that. So maybe that's an underlying reason a) Ray jumped to MCA and b) Word of Mouth was poorly promoted. Imagine Ray back under control of a label that mishandled the Kinks releases for half a decade. A song like Working At The Factory makes even more sense knowing this. Anyway here is a link to that 1979 NY Times article about the crisis in the industry: Record Industry's Sales Slowing After 25 Years of Steady Growth (Published 1979)
AFL1-3603 did reach #42 in Billboard but reportedly sold only 150,000 copies, not a huge success. I figured it must not have had legs but, much to my surprise, it stayed in the charts for 14 weeks, equal to or longer than many Kinks releases!
Those 150,000 sales might be more than the Preservation albums combined! The largely unheralded Soap Opera is the chart winner of the RCA years and charted higher than most of their other albums.
This is pretty cool. I recall my middle brother having this Dave record. The cover really stuck with me. I think our local rock station played something off of it but so far nothing sounds familiar. Thank you!
Visionary Dreamer is a good song, nice arrangement and the chorus is an ear worm. Dave is singing his heart out about love, apparently, I have a hard time holding that against him; it's an amazing performance really, like an enraged Steve Perry, except he's also happy somehow. This album is always threatening to sound mainstream, but then absolutely refuses to get there. I think that is part of the reason it fascinates me. Amazing that it sold so well, it must have had a good marketing push. While I enjoy Visionary Dreamer, I do get a little excited when it's over because it kicks off a stretch of great songs ... ... starting with Nothin' More To Lose. Love the powerful production on this, and I've already mentioned how much I appreciate the intensity of the 7/4 chorus, which comes as a surprise on this rocker. I have accepted the palette of sounds Dave chose to use on this album and I believe he employs them expertly and artfully, with Nothin' More To Lose being a great example. I do appreciate it more listening on my good system with full-size speakers, to really give that reverb some space to verb, and get the distortion moving those air molecules around with some force.
This MA Avid will NOT have Monday off. I work for a private company that doesn't give us that day. But my two daughters are home from college and that's a good enough reason to be happy.
Days off? What are these strange things you speak of .. Actually, I was a bad boy and had today off lol
I just listened to this and I think that it was interesting that Studs Terkel actually listened to Arthur before he interviewed Ray. I believe that he was about 50-60 when this interview was done. I don't think that there were too many people of Studs' age who would listen to a rock album and discuss it intelligently back then.
that was wonderful to listen to. Thank you @ajsmith! Listening to Ray just read his lyrics… it is poetry. Some Mother’s Son is perhaps his best set of lyrics? I think I might be there.
These Dave tracks are really starting to grow on me. The compositions are gaining distinct personalities, beyond the sonic uniformity. None of these songs really fit a formula, even when they hint at one. I even like the wtf lyrics, they’re very rock’n’roll, expressing a state of nerves more than a state of mind. The main barrier is indeed the sound. The problem is not that it’s an 80s sound, it’s more that it sucks. Too much treble, I don’t know. A uselessly strident mix. Part of it is due to the writing and arrangement, but not only. For the moment, as much as I paid attention, Dave’s bass style strikes me as being very minimalist. I tended to believe that lead guitarists had rather melodic bass playing styles, like Keith Richards for instance. Dave doesn’t play bass like he plays guitar at all, and it’s cool. Someone said Dave had no notion of what a time signature was (was it Avid @Luckless Pedestrian ?).I don’t think so. I believe the fact that rock musicians can’t read a score doesn’t mean they don’t know what a time signature is. Maybe he didn’t really know what he was doing in his early 60s compositions, but I don’t think you can play for a very long time in a rock band without knowing what 3/4 and 4/4 mean, and without realizing when you stray from these basic rhythms. The drummer will remind you. And when you handle drums yourself you have to realize it. Just to be sure, in Doing The Best For You, the sound that some call a synth and others call a piano is one and the same thing, right ? (It’s really a piano, I believe). For the moment Visionary Dreamer is my favorite track, of the 4 that have been reviewed. But I really like the other 3 as well. The opener's long intro has an 80s prog feel. The very beginning could sound like mock Crimson. Then you have this guitar duo that reminds me of Sweet Jane's intro on Rock'n'roll Animal. But it's really the music of the verse without vocals, as someone commented earlier. I remember writing here that this album made me think of a prog guitarist's solo project. In fact, in my music listening experience, I draw a parallel with another 80s record, not by a prog guitarist, but by a prog keyboardist : Tony Banks. Some time around 1990, I borrowed his 1983 album The Fugitive at the same local library that lent me AFL smthg, probably around the same time. I had the same reaction : I was expecting an album’s worth of Firth of Fifth epics, and I got some 80s pop. I put it away in horror and never thought about it again until a few years ago, when I re-discovered it with a totally different ear. And it’s become one of my favorite albums from the 80s, and one of my top 3 or 4 favorite Genesis solo projects. (I know Genesis solo projects are the most unsexy category of things to boast you’re into, but thank God I don’t need to care about this anymore). Now I don’t think Dave’s album is anywhere as good as Tony Bank’s, but I think it’s going to stay with me from now on. I have no notion of who Foreigner are, so maybe my innocence saves me.
1980 also saw Costello's Get Happy (one of my favorite), Joe Jackson's Beat Crazy, Squeeze's Argybargy. And of course Lennon and Ono's Double Fantasy, the greatest twist in critical acclaim that ever occurred within 3 weeks of an album's release. Yeah ok, not funny. But true, to some extent, I guess.
Get Happy! is also a big favorite of mine from the day I got it back in 1980. It was also true about the mixed initial response of Double Fantasy. I remember a review in one of the Boston "alternative" papers (either the Real Paper or the Phoenix) that gave it two stars.
Wire, "154" Public Image Ltd, "Metal Box" XTC, "Drums and Wires" Throbbing Gristle, "20 Jazz Funk Greats" Swell Maps, "A Trip to Marineville" The Fall, "Live at the Witch Trials" AND "Dragnet" The Pop Group, "Y" Gang of Four, "Entertainment" The Slits, "Cut" The Raincoats, s/t This Heat, s/t ... and that's just in the UK alone.
I’ve noticed this too, Dave uses the words like a painter uses colors and shades in a composition. They don’t scan at all on the page but in the context of the songs they work well to accent the emotion expressed by the music. With Daves vocal style I’m usually only picking up individual words or short phrases, but they always fit, like a instrument in tune. A completely different style of writing than his brother’s, it’s fascinating how it manages to work. PS I’m sure that as a pro musician Dave knows time signatures, that must have been someone else’s comment!
Visionary Dreamer This sounds like Dave is going for quite a commercial track and I do think his single string lead lines are very well thought out and executed. Not a Journey fan either but there you go. Anyone else think the ghost of Sue was still haunting him?
Nothing More To Lose This sounds contemporary in a more palatable way than the previous track perhaps in some ways it just doesn't try as hard to it's own benefit. I did pick up the two obvious Chuck Berry nods and both fit in fine. The chorus does nothing for me however Dave's vocal is a little better and the chordal stand somehow remind me of the soon to follow and more tightly orchestrated and arranged Porcelain by The Pretenders!
