Paul Robeson - I Still Suits Me

 My first review in around two months or something, apologies!


Ahh, Paul Robeson, a man whose voice is as timeless as it is powerful. As much as a political activist as he was a singer, Robeson (natually) helped the civil rights movement, protesting against imperialism and injustice and proudly supporting the USSR after numerous visits, declaring that they didn't have the institutionalised racism which was (and seemingly still is) prevailant in the US. His political activities though would damage his commercial career, leading to an almost complete erasure from twentieth century history until his death in the late seventies, where he once again began to be appreciated and aknowledged as a truely great man. One who would not bend to the whim of the elite, and would not sacrifice his principles at the risk of his career. Paul Robeson's a man I often mention as a personal hero, because of his inability to back down in the face of injustice, and because he was a man confident enough to speak his mind. but anyways, what we're here to do is talk about this music! My earliest recording on vinyl, 1936's 'I Still Suits me'.

I Still Suits Me comes from the musical production, Showboat, which really launched Robeson's career into the american mainstream, especially his soul breaking rendition of 'Old man River'. A beautiful relaxed string takes us into it, while Paul sings over in a faux hawaian style. Infact the track itself is very faux-island. Elizabeth Welch jumps in making this track a duet. They trade lines after the first verse, the light hearted airyness of the music contrasting the domestic arguement at the heart of the lyrics. Showing that despite the disagreements, the love is still there. A typical Hammerstein move, and we like it.

Side B features 'Just A Wearyin For You', written at the turn of the century and this rendition recorded in 1938. A soft romantic opening introduces us to Robeson's deep deep baritone voice crooning for his love. It's a very sentimental track, as typical of the time, but the man's powerful voice makes it truely timeless and gives it's gentle romanticism an almost biblical sense of feeling, this isn't just one man awaiting the return of his love, but Paul Robeson becomes everyman whose awaiting the return of their love.

It's a great little piece of history to have, two good songs sung by one of the greatest men in human history.

John Barry & Monty Norman - The Best Of Bond

James bond movies have over the years become a British institution, outlasting both the cold war and a-ha! They represent an older time, and are movies filled with misogyny, violence and black/white morality, Bond starting out as an anti-hero in his earlier films, but by Diamonds Are Forever, a total dickhead. But anyways, the films tend to have quite apt music (apart from the previously mentioned film with a diamond orientation), and so this record was a total no-brainer. Filled with music from the first five films, Side A has Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, while Side B continues with Goldfinger, then features Thunderball and You Only Live Twice.

Doctor No opens up with the now legendary James Bond Theme, brass band meets surf guitar, it's as catchy as ever, and is a very masculine sound, really suiting the character, especially when it gets louder, and the brass really kicks in jazz style. After it ends, we get Kingston Calypso, a gentle island strumming and percussion, with flute leading us into three blind mice in a pre-reggae style, instantly creating a Caribbean atmosphere. The jazzy guitar solo is nice and smooth, rolling through the ears, and this naive sound works well in the film, playing over an assassination. The track fades out, and we get treated to Under The Mango Tree, a simple island style song, sung by Diana Coupland, Monty Norman's wife at the time. It has the familiar naive island theme, a sweet lyrical about love. It's hard to separate the song from the moment in the film where Ursella Andress comes up from the beach, and why would we want to?

We're now onto From Russia With Love, track one is the catchily titled Opening Titles-James Bond Is Back-From Russia With Love-James Bond Is Back. It opens with a harsh sudden horn blast, taking us into the smooth silky romantic melody of From Russia With Love, the violin plays with our silky ears oh so sweet, and then it melts into the James Bond theme and ends with a sudden flare of horn. The second track from this movie is The Golden Horn,  a gypsy themed track, introducing with a percussion loop that keeps going, and bringing us on with a playful upbeat repeating melody, loosing it's gypsy edge a bit and becoming more traditional, but still keeping the same melody. The next track is simply titled 007, a timpani beat followed by horn and drum, the brass and string kicks in, this is the signiture action scene used in most of the seventies Bond films, a nice hint of menace and adventure and romance in the melody, like a European version of the old wild west themes. We also get a nice call and response bit between the brass and string sections. Bond has the edge, and is on the winning team.

Now we're onto the Goldfinger section, opening up with Golden Girl, a haunting melody which pens up with some creeping bass notes punctuated with brass hits and multi-instrument swells. It's got the really strong sense of danger, and builds the tension up with it's irregular structure, Bond's out of luck for sure. The final track is Oddjob's Pressing Engagement, a reprise of the main Bond Theme, mixed in with the big brassy punch of the Goldfinger theme, which just hits the right note for an action-packed sound, and fades into a nice tense section, before punching back up again. The Goldfinger melody on it's own is really inspired, but how it melts with the Bond theme here is just class, and forms a perfect end to the first side of the record. Bond Back In Action Again kicks off the second side of the record and finishes off the Goldfinger section whilst providing a brilliant way to kick start tthe final half of the album. The Bond theme takes on a more tense edge, as Bond's clearly up to some work here, playing with the main Bond rhythm with some neat brass flourishes and espionage sounds.

Thunderball opens up with... Thunderball! Starting kinda jazzy, it takes us quickly into romantic schmaltz zone, with some not-at-all-subtle strings, the brass further accentuates this, while the background rhythm plays with notions of the Bond theme and the Thunderball theme at time, it is all submerged under the main music and the cocktail lounge piano meandering over the top. This really is jazz-lite and doesn't have the strength or convictions of previous tracks so far, choosing to live in the world of Muzak. Ewwww. The second Thunderball track is Death Of Fiona, a caribbean rhythm and simplistic brass melody take us into the track, unusually upbeat for a deathsong, the percussion gets louder and louder before prettymuch overtaking the main music, then suddenly the track gets violent and we see why it's a death song, harsh stabs at strings and brass and a heavy beat before returning to the bland main melody. Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the final Thunderball track, action, menace, loud brass hits, all are here! This combines Bond action music with jazz-lite, as the melody from the previous track makes a return, ruining the tension which was built up during the intro of the track. Later Bond movies would have a more successful jazz (and even funk) element to their background music.

The final movie on the record is You Only Live Twice, starting with Fight At Kobe Dock-Helga, which has some really good menacing sounds, keeping with Bond music tradition, the rhythm takes an influence from sixties beat music, while the main melody keeps with the Bond standards. The track punctuates with brass or string hits. The next track is Mountains And Sunsets, again, kinda tense, with some romantic strings layered over the top, and the main melody appearing. There's this faux-eastern sound to it, due to the film being set in Japan, but with random jazz trumpet, kinda weakens it. It's a schmaltzy track. The album ends with Bond Adverts World War Three, which is a pretty dramatic title! starting with the main You Only Live Twice melody with flourishes of harp and vaguely eastern sounding instruments, this continues the schmaltz before going all sinister, keeping a quiet melody plodding on, before the drama kicks in. The main melody is now sounding more menacing, a fake schmaltz. All in all, it's a soft track to end the record on, but after it ends, we get the Bond theme making a reappearance, the track hasn't ended! the drama kicks in! Bond is running out of luck, and has to fight as the brass hits start up, and the strings are suitably menacing!  The track builds up to a big splash and brings a menacing spacey melody into play, building up the tension, we feel like we're nearing WW3, but then the track ends after the build-up and we're done.

All in all, it's a good listen, I enjoy listening to it when reading. It's by no means a must-have but a proper curiosity, and does deserve a place in your collection.

Various - Transformers The Movie OST

In 'The Real Frank Zappa Book', Frank makes the observation that the world will not end by war or global disaster, but by Nostalgia. Death by nostalgia, culturally, really is a serious issue. It's only 2012, yet people are already nostalgic for 90's entertainment, 12 years! This kinda of nostalgic sentiment provides a major problem, as it inspires people to copy what has gone on before and to avoid making anything new or exciting. Sometimes an initial nostalgic sentiment really pays off (such as 2005's relaunch of Doctor Who, which updates the classic series and modernises/simplifies it for a new audience) while others result in Status Quo continuing to drag their zombie corpse asses around on yet another bland tour of contentless music, because their fans are too stubborn to admit that new music can be good, and too stubborn to admit that Quo have never been good.
ANYWAYS... This is about a movie soundtrack, A Transformers movie soundtrack. No, not the movie with Linkin Park and over-abundant racism, the original 1986 animated movie. Like many shy/geeky children, I loved Transformers and still find it at times interesting (particularly the 1980's british comics), but however I cannot allow myself to talk about that here! This is about music! The Transformers brand is half held-up by nostalgia and half held-up by new fans, the nostalgia crew however seem rather single minded with an almost religious zeal. The singer Stan Bush's career is pretty solidly secure solely because of the aging Transformers fandom, and his role in the music for this movie.

Every film in the eighties had a feel good hair anthem, and Transformers The Movie is no exception. The soundtrack kicks it off with Stan Bush' famous (or in-famous) The Touch. All the cheese in France could not come close to even making this song's opening keyboard riff, it's terrible. Bush does his best 80's rock, yelling our dreary lines with an amazing faux-passion which makes it seem like he kinda pretends to care (though now, since this song is all he's known for, he prettymuch has to care, but being an eighties singer, you can never tell). This song is prettymuch the best example of a guilty pleasure ever. It's terrible, but makes you smile. We hear a crash, a menacing guitar line and now N.R.G join in the soundtrack with their heavy metal track Instruments Of Destruction. It must have been had being a metal band in the eighties, you kinda have the Judas Priest influence but then the ever increasing pop influence. This song sounds like it's on that crossroads, trying to souond menacing but not really getting it. Generic solos not really doing much over an 80's echoed snare beat, and the predictable falsetto vocals to end on, but the guy ain't no Rob halford, though he gives it his best shot.We next get the first of three (well if we include the next track, four) Vince DiCola tracks, Death Of Optimus Prime(gee, I wonder what scene this music is played over), it's fantastic. A soft piano piece over ghostly synths, a subtle bounce on the bass notes propells the music at a slow pace, the synthy swells move us, then the percussive section signals the final moment of the great Autobot. An arped section comes on with an optimistic softness, and a horn section, there is hope for them after all? The sad melody of a synth guitar sound kicks in, and an ominous sound emerges. To counteract that track, we are jumped right into Dare. Another Stan Bush track, literally made of a thousand cows worth of cheese, but this is kept fully in place by what is a realy decent synth sound provided by Vince DiCola. It's upbeat, go gett'em kinda music, perhaps suitable for joggers? the track breaks out into an amazing synth break, built on layers of synths bass and drums that just works so well, and sounds so cool that it makes the track itself. It must be said that Vince DiCola is fantastic throughout the film, and a convention exclusive score is avaliable at high price on the second hand market. With more of that guy's music, it's well worth a purchase!

Spectre General come in with the Twisted Sister style Nothin's Gonna Stand In Our Way, it's eighties heavy metal, it's fun fluff, nothing really noticable though, it's really really average. The guitar solo does a good job at keeping the main melody going and playing around with the heavy metal guitar cliches, but that's all. Next up however is the crowning glory of the metal part of thsi soundtrack, Lion's rendition of The Transformers (Theme). We have a steady beat comming up, then Doug Aldrich's(yes, The Doug Aldrich, modern day Whitesnake guitar hero) guitar bulds up into the the first verse, actually heavier guitars than other 'metal' tracks on the soundtrack. The chorus really jumps out with ther hair metal vocals and heavy metal guitars, it's a guilty pleasure for sure, but when Aldrich jumps in with the solo, it's really really good, it's better than this soundtrack deserves. The verses are prettymuch standard power/battle metal, and kinda suit a franchise/movie based on war. The guitar solo and licks though are just really good. Next we have another amazing DiCola track, Escape. A soft spacey playful quiet section takes us into space, broken up with a beat, a gentle melancholic melody and then we get into the track, it's eighties action track music, with the joy of Vince DiCola's synth sound and playful sense of melody. A reprise of the melody found in the Death of Optimus Prime is featured, it's a recurring motiff throughout the film. This track manages to be both playful and yet dramatic/menacing at the same time while still sounding totally synthy. Little flourishes like the 60's organ sound playing around the 80's synth and guitar sound create a different texture than you'd expect. And the rythm changes throughout reflecting the action on the screen, rather than staying on one constant stream of music. The main motiff returns and is played with before fading.

Spectre General make a return here with their consumption track Hunger, which is not at all about drug abuse/crime. It's really REALLY disturbing to hear this in the context of a children's movie, but I guess it's still not mysogynistic/racist to the point of having a harmful effect on society like the modern transformers movies, and let's face it, the few children who actually watched this film in the cinema are too geeky to have gotten into drugs, but still, it just doesn't feel right. Also it's a very average track, aided by being in one of the best scenes of the film. DiCola's final track on the album is next, Autobot/Decepticon Battle (catchy title!). It plays with the standard rythm found throughout, the main motiff, and a funky synth-bassline, the changes in music keep our ears on their toes, and when it gets into the main action element of the music, the recurring motiff is giving extra eighties guitar menace! Various other elements from the score return, unifying it in a way many composers neglect to do these days. DiCola does keep suprising us with different and exciting synth sounds throughout and interesting ways of interpreting the familiar elements, sometimes adding a more militaristic edge, sometimes drawing from P Funk influences, and constantly chopping it throughout, keeping it fresh and non-repetative despite the use of familiar elements, rythms and melodies. We end with Weird Al's classic Dare To Be Stupid, which is just pure enjoyable randomness. He keeps just listing and playing with the old sayings about being stupid, telling us to make a mountain out of a molehill, and ordering us to bite the hand that feeds us. Like the rest of the songs here, it's fluff, but has a bouncing 80's beat to just raise the corners of your mouth.

Ultimately, the only real tracks worth listening to are the theme by Lion, and the Vince DiCola tracks, however the convention exclusive soundtrack has much much more of his work on it, and I really want to get me a copy of it. He's a much underrated soundtrack composer of the eighties, and is one of the few working in hollywood where his music can be listened to on it's own without visual reference, so I'd recommend getting his score for this film. Just perhaps not the other tracks!

Whitney Houston - I will always love you

Whitney Houston was perhaps the most famous female singer on the planet, who influenced several generations of popular music and whose impressive vocal range will live on. She managed to combine gospel and soul into an operatic wagnerian bombastic voice, virtually creating a genre unto itself, she scaled unsurpassable heights. We love our heroes tragic, we have to raise them up, in order for them to fall, but Houston dealt with a deal (in many cases, quite literally), dealing with constant legal issues, drug problems and more. But when all is said and done, does this superfluous, the music is what matters, and is it any good? Houston's voice inspired virtually every female pop singer around today, and ended up creating the 'plastic white-girl soul' voice which everybody uses today. But we can't hold her account for that, just like we can't blame Lightnin Rod for 50 Cent, or The Dead Kennedys for Greenday.

For the A Side, we have Houston's immortal cover of Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You. After an Acapella introduction, the lushly produced backing music fades in under Houston's eternally warbling voice. The notes are being hit, and the force of the voice pushes it past the bland territory into the field of meaning. There's heart in here, but it's kinda hidden under the warbling. We get traces of 80's saxaphone and electric piano plinky plonks, and Houston's amazingly over-extended vowels, tretching out so that words like 'I' and 'You' last around six seconds each. Her voice is kinda like soft honey, it's very silky smooth. I haven't seen The Bodyguard, and have no intention to, so how this plays out in a filmic sense is something I will never know, but I do know that she really punches out those words. In the end, the track kinda bubbles away to silence after the real big chorus.

Church Organs and plonky eighties pianos introduces us to the lounge gospel stylings of the B side, Jesus Loves Me, which is one of the least remarkable songs I've heard. there is nothing really to talk about it, it's a gospel track, but lacking the oomph and passion found in many black gospel choirs. The sterile production does nothing to help either.

Now, this really isn't my kind of music, I must admit, but music is made to be listened to, and listen to it I did. I can't say I like it, but I can appreciate I Will Always Love You, and understand why it's a classic, but the B side is just wallpaper music, total filler.