A number of years ago I started a project in which I put together "Beatles" albums for the period following the group's split using the best solo tracks by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. The Beatles are almost uniquely suited for this sort of thing for a number of reasons. For one thing, all four members of the group sang. Vocals are perhaps the single most identifiable feature of a band for many listeners, so having the same vocalists makes the songs sound like they are by the same band, even when they are not. When musicians like Tony Banks or Mike Rutherford of Genesis release solo albums featuring other singers, for most listeners the songs don't sound like Genesis songs, even if many of the musical elements are the same, simply because the vocalist is not Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins. Secondly, John, Paul and George wrote all of their solo songs, except for the occasional cover or collaboration with other musicians. Even Ringo wrote or co-wrote some of his better solo songs, and many others were written by his former bandmates. If one were to put together post-1970 Simon and Garfunkel albums by putting together solo tracks by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, not only would they be missing the harmonies that typified their work together, Garfunkel's songs would not sound so much like Simon and Garfunkel because Paul Simon didn't write them (for that matter, Simon's own solo songs didn't sound a lot like Simon and Garfunkel because he changed his writing style -- but that's another issue).
Another reason the Beatles are particularly appropriate for this is they had extensive solo careers, providing the compiler with lots of material to choose from (at least until John Lennon's death, when it becomes harder to maintain a balance in the material). All four members of Queen, for example, were very good songwriters and wrote hits for the group. While Freddie Mercury's voice was one of the band's biggest assets, both Brian May and Roger Taylor sang lead often enough that their voices are also closely associated with the band. But Freddie, the main vocalist, only had two solo albums and a few other solo tracks here and there, and Brian May has also only released two proper solo albums. This doesn't provide much material to choose from (in some ways, the final Queen album, Made In Heaven, was very much like what I am doing here with the Beatles, as many of the songs were originally from solo projects, but it would be difficult to squeeze many more "Queen" albums out of the remaining solo material). In addition, the Beatles had a strong band identity. David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash (not to mention Neil Young) all sang, wrote and released plenty of solo material. But given that Crosby, Stills and Nash as a group was constantly breaking up and reforming (with or without Young) and songs were put out in different permutations (Crosby and Nash, the Stills-Young band, etc.), the group never had the unity that the Beatles had when they were together. Finally, the Beatles are well suited because they are the Beatles, a group that has been, as Nick Hornby said, practically "deified". No other band excites as much interest. In fact, a few years after I started putting my post-breakup Beatles albums together, a book was released called Let's Put the Beatles Back Together Again, based on this very concept. I finally ordered a copy a few weeks ago, and so soon I'll be checking out the writer's own ideas about what songs should go on these Beatles albums. But for now, here's the first of my Beatles album, along with the write-up that I did at the time (and posted on LiveJournal for a restricted audience of family and friends).
What Is Life
01 Maybe I'm Amazed (McCartney) 3:50
02 What Is Life (Harrison) 4:22
03 Instant Karma (Lennon) 3:21
04 It Don't Come Easy (Starkey) 3:02
05 Cold Turkey (Lennon) 5:01
06 Art Of Dying (Harrison) 3:37
07 Every Night (McCartney) 2:32
08 My Sweet Lord (Harrison) 4:37
09 God (Lennon) 4:10
10 That Would Be Something (McCartney) 2:44
11 All Things Must Pass (Harrison) 3:44
12 Junk (McCartney) 1:54
13 Give Peace A Chance (Lennon) 4:51
Total Time - 47:18
Maybe I'm Amazed
Written and Performed by Paul McCartney
Recorded 1970/02/22; Released 1970/04/20
From McCartney
What Is Life
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Drums (on about half of the album, no details available): Ringo Starr
Recorded Mid 1970; Released 1970/11/27
From All Things Must Pass
Instant Karma
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Guitar: George Harrison
Recorded 1970/01/27; Released 1970/02/06
Single
It Don't Come Easy
Written and Performed by Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr)
Guitar and Production: George Harrison
Recorded 1970/03/08; Released 1971/04/09
Single
Cold Turkey
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Drums: Ringo Starr
Recorded 1969/09/25-28; Released 1969/10/24
Single
Art Of Dying
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Drums (on about half of the album, no details available): Ringo Starr
Recorded Mid 1970; Released 1970/11/27
From All Things Must Pass
Every Night
Written and Performed by Paul McCartney
Recorded 1970/02/22; Released 1970/04/20
From McCartney
My Sweet Lord
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Drums (on about half of the album, no details available): Ringo Starr
Recorded Mid 1970; Released 1970/11/27 (single release 1970/11/23[US])
From All Things Must Pass
God
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Drums: Ringo Starr
Recorded 1970/09-10; Released 1970/12/11
From Plastic Ono Band
That Would Be Something
Written and Performed by Paul McCartney
Recorded Early 1970; Released 1970/04/20
From McCartney
All Things Must Pass
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Drums (on about half of the album, no details available): Ringo Starr
Recorded Mid 1970; Released 1970/11/27
From All Things Must Pass
Junk
Written and Performed by Paul McCartney
Recorded Early 1970; Released 1970/04/20
From McCartney
Give Peace A Chance
Written and Performed by John Lennon
[Overdubbed Drums: Ringo Starr (uncertain; no documentation available)]
Recorded 1969/06/01; Released 1969/07/04
Single
Suppose the Beatles had not broken up in early 1970 but had remained together, what might their subsequent releases have been like? There is of course no way of truly answering that question, but it's possible to at least get an idea of what might have been from their solo releases. This is my attempt to put together a post-Abbey Road, post-Let It Be Beatles album. Of course I am not the only person such an idea has occurred to; the entry from The Mojo Collection: The Greatest Albums of All Time on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass contains the following passage: "Try playing Imagine The Beatles Had Stayed Together. Gather all the Beatles solo material released in the year after the split and see if you can compile what might have been the Beatles' album for 1971. You'll find that when it comes to selecting George's contributions you'll be spoilt for choice." Though the idea of putting together some post-break up Beatles albums had occurred to me before, this reference gave me some added encouragement.
Needless to say, it is highly unlikely that, even if the Beatles had stayed together, their albums would have been exactly like these. For example, several of John's songs on What Is Life were actually released as singles while the Beatles were still together, so they wouldn't have appeared on a Beatles album. But since these songs ("Cold Turkey", "Give Peace A Chance", and "Instant Karma") are among John's best solo work, I couldn't resist including them. Another factor which would certainly have been different had the Beatles stayed together is the arrangements and production; as it is, we have the simple arrangements of the tracks from McCartney (on which Paul plays all the instruments), the ragged choruses on "Give Peace A Chance" and "Instant Karma", and Phil Spector's Wall of Sound on the tracks from All Thing Must Pass. But on the other hand, perhaps we can think of it as a later equivalent to The Beatles (The White Album), which also lacked a unified sound but is nevertheless a great album. Having said all this, most of these songs fit together rather well, and I cut the space between tracks down to a minimum so they would almost (though not quite) directly segue into each other.
What Is Life is the first album I made, and it can be considered the Beatles' album for the end of 1970, as all of these tracks were released in 1970 or earlier except "It Don't Come Easy", and that was recorded in early 1970. I almost titled the album Maybe I'm Amazed, as that is an obvious standout track, but since overall this particular album has less material from Paul than the average Beatles album I felt I should use a song by one of the others as the title track, and it also seems likely that having had a Paul song as a title track on the previous release (Let It Be), the others would have been less inclined to give him two in a row. I decided to make a George song the title track, as he has more material on this album than on any genuine Beatles release (indeed as much as either John or Paul), and he had never had one of his songs as a title track.
When it came to making song selections, it wasn't difficult to find enough material, at least for the first couple of albums. George and John in particular both got off to strong starts on their solo careers. Mojo's observation above about George is absolutely correct, due to All Things Must Pass, which is widely regarded as one of the best, and perhaps even the best, solo Beatle release (though most people ignore the extended jams that made up the third record on the original triple album). I used songs from this record on both of these CDs, and there are still great songs which have been left unused (at least one more will appear on the third "70s Beatles" album when I get around to compiling it). On What Is Life, besides the song of the same name (a great pop song and a substantial hit), I included the biggest hit off All Things Must Pass, "My Sweet Lord"; the wonderful title track; and "Art Of Dying", one of the many good album tracks.
As for John, not only did he have the above mentioned solo singles, but his first two album releases, Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, are nowadays generally regarded as his best. Again there are plenty of good songs on both of these albums which I won't be able to fit into these "Beatles" albums (for that matter most of the best songs from Imagine aren't on either What Is Life or Working Class Heroes, my second Beatles album, as I'm saving them for the third album). On the first album, I included all three of John's earlier singles, plus "God" from Plastic Ono Band. It may be a bit odd to have a song which declares "I don't believe in Beatles" on a Beatles album, but it's a great song so I had to put it on anyway. Also it sounds great coming right after George's "My Sweet Lord", so you get George's spiritual outlook contrasted with John's cynical one.
Ringo didn't get off to quite as great a start as George and John, as his first two solo albums were a selection of oldies and a country album (with material composed by Nashville songwriters) respectively. But he did release a couple of great singles which showed that he could write good songs even if he wasn't exactly prolific. "It Don't Come Easy" in particular is one of what I'd say are his two best solo songs (the second one will be appearing on a later album).
Paul, on the other hand, got off to a relatively slow start, as his first album was not very well regarded, for the most part. But the thing about Paul is that he was by far the most prolific of the Beatles after the break-up, and while most of his albums tended to be inconsistent, he usually managed to have at least a couple of good songs on each of them. His first album is a case in point. "Maybe I'm Amazed" is a universal favorite; some consider it one of his best songs ever. "Every Night" or "That Must Be Something" or both are often mentioned as other standout tracks (George, for instance, said "‘That Must Be Something’ and ‘Maybe I'm Amazed’ I think are great and everything else I think is fair..."). "Junk" meanwhile is a short, simple little tune that also has quite a few fans and dates back to the White Album period (Paul did a demo of it in May 1968 at George's house in Esher), though it was never recorded by the Beatles.
I would have been tempted to put more songs on the album to take advantage of the space on the CD, but I decided to make it as close as I could to a genuine Beatles album released in the early 70s, which meant it could only be as long as the LPs of the day (What Is Life is almost exactly the same length as Abbey Road). While the result might not be exactly what the Beatles would have released had they stayed together, it does show one thing -- there was no obvious decline in the individual Beatles' songwriting abilities, at least in the first few years after the split (I'd say the songs on this album are on average as good as those on many real Beatles albums, and better than on some -- e.g. Let It Be). The problem was that they each had to write entire albums' worth of material, and they didn't have each other to criticize their songs and force them to choose only the best. As to which ones really are the best, no doubt others would make different choices (and I still recommend listening to most of the ex-Beatles' solo albums in their entirety), but hopefully you'll get sufficient listening pleasure out of my own attempt at reuniting the Beatles, if only on CD.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
Traveling Music by Neil Peart
In my other blog, I recently wrote about Traveling Music, a book by Neil Peart, best known as the drummer and lyricist of the Canadian rock band Rush. As I noted there, it seemed more appropriate the aspects of his book pertaining to music in this blog. During the road trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas which the book is built around, he listened to CDs that he liked from a wide variety of eras and genres, and he comments on his own relationship to and impressions of each of them. In other parts of the book, he talks about the early stages of his musical career. Other music-related tangents are scattered throughout the book.
Among the artists Peart listens to on his trip are Frank Sinatra (quite a few different albums over the course of the trip, including Sinatra & Company, with a cover of Kermit the Frog’s “Bein’ Green”, and the one Peart cites as his favorite, Watertown), Mel Tormé and Buddy Rich (with an aside about the Buddy Rich tribute album Peart produced), Mickey Hart (of the Grateful Dead, in a side project where he collaborated with many others) , Linkin Park (two albums from a band Peart calls a “‘must hear’ favorite”), Isaac Hayes (Hot Buttered Soul), Massive Attack (Blue Lines), Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here), the Tragically Hip (two albums by this Canadian group, with Peart giving particular praise to the lyrics), Roxy Music (Avalon), Vertical Horizon (a younger band whose leader Peart had become friends with after becoming a fan of their music), Miles Davis (Kind of Blue), Dusty Springfield (Dusty in Memphis, where in talking about all the great composers whose songs appear, he particularly singles out “two great songs by Randy Newman”), Paul Young (with particular reference to some of the musicians he collaborated with, such as Manu Katché), Coldplay (two albums), Jeff Buckley (Grace, which Peart calls his “current favorite CD of all”, Patsy Cline, 98 Degrees, Madonna (Ray of Light), Dido (with a positive mention of Eminem’s “Stan”, though Peart admits to not being a big fan of rap in general), and Radiohead (OK Computer, though interestingly he seems more to admire their approach than truly love their music).
I was mildly surprised by some of the music Peart said he liked, though I was not surprised that he listened to music outside of the genre he himself is a part of, as most good musicians do. He mentions that he had long been putting together tapes and later CDs of songs to be played over the P.A. before Rush concerts (variously titled “ShowTapes”, “ShowTunes” and “Rush Radio”), and being surprised that an English audience actually booed when a Police song came on (Peart seems to be a fan of the Police himself, speaking positively of them several times). Having read a couple of guys from Iron Maiden having an similar experience with playing Journey before their concerts, I was not so surprised; a lot of fans are a lot more narrow-minded than the bands they follow (in fact I plan to someday write an essay dedicated to this unfortunate phenomenon). I suppose I was if anything more surprised by his love for a band like Linkin Park than for artists like Sinatra, perhaps because many older musicians don’t seem to listen to artists a lot younger than themselves that much. It’s to Peart’s credit that he is an exception. In any case, while I have some of the albums Peart talks about, he did succeed in making me curious about many of those I haven’t heard, particularly those he praises at length.
Where I most strongly disagree with Peart is on some of his comments on the Beatles. He lists his “pantheon” of music greats (ranging from Ellington and Sinatra through Dylan and Joni Mitchell to Kurt Cobain and Jeff Buckley, and makes a point of noting that Elvis Presley and the Beatles are not among them (nor are the Rolling Stones, who he talks about more towards the end of the book), and of saying that other than one single he won selling newspaper subscriptions as a kid, he never owned any of their records. He discusses this at some length, and brings up the issue of the Beatles several more times in the book. While of course taste is subjective (as Peart himself acknowledges), he seems to try to make a more objective argument for leaving the Beatles out of his list, and his comments about them strike me as somewhat inconsistent. He accuses the early Beatles (and Elvis and the Stones) of being too derivative of black music, and talks at some length about how they were influenced by others (while neglecting to mention how some of those same others, notably Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend and Brian Wilson – while it is certainly true, for example, that Pet Sounds helped inspire Sgt. Pepper, Pet Sounds in turn had been inspired by Rubber Soul). On the other hand, he acknowledges that the Beatles wrote some “great” songs, and implicitly admits that they were pioneers. At times he displays a fairly thorough knowledge of the Beatles’ catalogue and history, even their solo work (he mentions Ram as an example of good solo work by McCartney), and at other times talks as if he had hardly listened to them at all, such as when he says that when he was a teenager in the late 1960s, he thought that “they seemed more like ‘pop’ music, sometimes almost the dreaded teeny-bopper, bubblegum music my young-musician friends and I so despised.” While one could argue that the Beatles did play (very high-quality) teen music in the early 1960s, there is nothing remotely “bubblegum” about their late 1960s output.
Peart also seems to subscribe to several somewhat inaccurate popular views of John Lennon and Paul McCartney and their relationship. For one thing, he sees Lennon as the edgy, experimental one and McCartney as more conventional. While it is true that many of the Beatles' more obviously experimental tracks were Lennon's, McCartney often played a major role in putting them together (e.g., the tape loops on "Tomorrow Never Knows" and the orchestral freak out on "A Day in the Life"), not to mention the fact that McCartney's songs often were also pioneering in the way they were recorded ("Eleanor Rigby" being an obvious example). Peart quotes McCartney as saying "Strawberry Fields Forever" was "too weird", yet though I've read a fair amount of Beatles-related literature, I've never seen such a quote, and I'm somewhat dubious about its accuracy. In stating his agreement with those who think The White Album should have been cut down to a single album (an argument that I don't want to get into now), he also quotes McCartney as saying in response "Shut up, it's the Beatles' White Album." The quote I've seen is "Come on, it's the Beatles' White Album", which sounds a bit flippant, but is hardly the arrogantly dismissive response Peart has him making. This is not to say Paul could never be arrogant; only that Peart's view is overly negative (on the other hand, I should note that many of his references to McCartney are more positive; aside from mentioning that he did some good solo work, he mentions that he recommended the Who – Peart’s favorite band as a teen – to perform at the Monterey Pop Festival, among other things). He also mentions Lennon's "How Do You Sleep" as illustrating "the depth of his contempt for his former partner", when in fact from what John himself said later it was more of an exaggerated emotional outburst which didn't represent his true feelings toward Paul. In fact that was the nadir of their relationship; a few years later the two were occasionally hanging out together and while their relationship cooled off again somewhat, they did sometimes speak by phone and Lennon spoke positively of McCartney and quite a few of his songs in interviews not long before his death.
In the course of the book, Peart quotes the author Nick Hornby several times. Interestingly, he says he agrees with almost everything Hornby had to say about pop music, except the music itself, as he liked almost nothing Hornby liked, and he guessed that Hornby wouldn't like anything he (Peart) liked, which again shows how subjective taste in music is. In any case, Peart also quotes Hornby on the Beatles, and I think this quote goes to heart of Peart's own ambivalence about them. Basically, Hornby says that in the case of the Beatles "some very good, very pretty, very sharply written, brilliantly produced, and undeniably memorable songs have been credited with almost supernatural power. It's what happens when people are defied." His point is that because of the popular and critical adulation the Beatles received and the unquestionably major influence they had, their songs are no longer seen as just songs, and their work tends to overshadow everything else that happened musically in the 1960s, to the extent that almost everything that happened during the decade gets connected with them. I think Hornby is basically correct here, as I have to admit even I find it hard to look at Beatles songs the same way I look at other songs. As great as the Beatles were, their superiority to other important artists of the time shouldn't be exaggerated (Hornby points out that a similar thing happened with Shakespeare). Basically, I think that Peart. perhaps subconsciously, feels a certain degree of resentment for the way the Beatles tend to overshadow other artists who he likes as much or better, and so he is inclined to be somewhat negative about them. It would also be somewhat understandable if some people who grew up in the 60s may have occasionally gotten tired of hearing the Beatles, as their music was no doubt played a lot (I don't usually want to hear any particular song more than once a day myself, even if I love it). Towards the end of the book, when Peart talks about playing a big concert in Toronto with AC/DC and the Rolling Stones, he remarks that he had never been a big Stones fan and had never owned any of their records other than a solo project by Charlie Watts but that "perhaps, as with the Beatles, I heard them so much it wasn't necessary to own their records!"
Peart several times says that for him one of the most important things about musicians is their artistic integrity. He tends to prefer artists who he perceives as writing and singing from the heart rather than treating it as a job or a way to get rich. I can understand where he's coming from, but then judging someone's artistic integrity is a tricky matter. Some artists who may seem to have a lot of integrity may in fact be much more calculating about their music than they appear to be, and artists who seem to just write and perform commercial music may be perfectly sincere in what they do. In any case, very few artists manage to go through their entire career without ever compromising, and in many cases compromising a little may result in better music. Peart claims that it seem to him when he was a teenager that the Beatles didn't share the "desperate sincerity" he admired, but considering how adventurous they were in the mid to late 60s, it would be hard to claim they were pandering to commercial expectations in any way. He also criticizes the Rolling Stones for agreeing to change "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's Spend Some Time Together" on the Ed Sullivan Show, contrasting it with Jim Morrison defiantly singing "girl, we couldn't get much higher" when performing "Light My Fire" with the Doors on the same show. While I'd agree that in this particular case the Doors look better, I would not assert that this alone means the Doors were a superior band in an overall sense (I'm not a huge fan of either, but I like them both about equally). While an obviously high standard of artistic integrity would be a point in an artist's favor, it would only be a minor factor in determining my listening preferences.
Peart's stories of playing music in Canada and England when he was young are also quite interesting, such as his time playing with a band in England whose van and amplifiers were all stolen, and whose guitarist had a girlfriend who was so jealous of his devotion to music that she sawed his guitar in half. After returning to Canada, he played briefly in a band that did covers of Genesis, Frank Zappa and the Who (I'd be curious what Genesis songs they did, but he doesn't say -- at another point in the book, he praises the double drumming Phil Collins and first Bill Bruford and then Chester Thompson did in concert, but that would have been some years later). It was while playing with this band that he was invited to audition for Rush, whose drummer was quitting the band. He doesn't talk in great detail about his career with Rush, though there are some interesting passages about how they record and how they put together their concerts. Inevitably, though, reading the book did cause quite a few of their songs to play on what Peart would call my "mental transistor radio". One song that has always been a favorite of mine is "Time Stand Still", and it is one that particularly sums up the travel parts of the book: "I'm not looking back but I want to look around me now, see more of the people and the places that surround me now." Of course, in this case he does spend some time looking back, but he allows the reader to join him in doing so. While I may disagree with some of his opinions, overall I for one enjoyed the experience.
Among the artists Peart listens to on his trip are Frank Sinatra (quite a few different albums over the course of the trip, including Sinatra & Company, with a cover of Kermit the Frog’s “Bein’ Green”, and the one Peart cites as his favorite, Watertown), Mel Tormé and Buddy Rich (with an aside about the Buddy Rich tribute album Peart produced), Mickey Hart (of the Grateful Dead, in a side project where he collaborated with many others) , Linkin Park (two albums from a band Peart calls a “‘must hear’ favorite”), Isaac Hayes (Hot Buttered Soul), Massive Attack (Blue Lines), Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here), the Tragically Hip (two albums by this Canadian group, with Peart giving particular praise to the lyrics), Roxy Music (Avalon), Vertical Horizon (a younger band whose leader Peart had become friends with after becoming a fan of their music), Miles Davis (Kind of Blue), Dusty Springfield (Dusty in Memphis, where in talking about all the great composers whose songs appear, he particularly singles out “two great songs by Randy Newman”), Paul Young (with particular reference to some of the musicians he collaborated with, such as Manu Katché), Coldplay (two albums), Jeff Buckley (Grace, which Peart calls his “current favorite CD of all”, Patsy Cline, 98 Degrees, Madonna (Ray of Light), Dido (with a positive mention of Eminem’s “Stan”, though Peart admits to not being a big fan of rap in general), and Radiohead (OK Computer, though interestingly he seems more to admire their approach than truly love their music).
I was mildly surprised by some of the music Peart said he liked, though I was not surprised that he listened to music outside of the genre he himself is a part of, as most good musicians do. He mentions that he had long been putting together tapes and later CDs of songs to be played over the P.A. before Rush concerts (variously titled “ShowTapes”, “ShowTunes” and “Rush Radio”), and being surprised that an English audience actually booed when a Police song came on (Peart seems to be a fan of the Police himself, speaking positively of them several times). Having read a couple of guys from Iron Maiden having an similar experience with playing Journey before their concerts, I was not so surprised; a lot of fans are a lot more narrow-minded than the bands they follow (in fact I plan to someday write an essay dedicated to this unfortunate phenomenon). I suppose I was if anything more surprised by his love for a band like Linkin Park than for artists like Sinatra, perhaps because many older musicians don’t seem to listen to artists a lot younger than themselves that much. It’s to Peart’s credit that he is an exception. In any case, while I have some of the albums Peart talks about, he did succeed in making me curious about many of those I haven’t heard, particularly those he praises at length.
Where I most strongly disagree with Peart is on some of his comments on the Beatles. He lists his “pantheon” of music greats (ranging from Ellington and Sinatra through Dylan and Joni Mitchell to Kurt Cobain and Jeff Buckley, and makes a point of noting that Elvis Presley and the Beatles are not among them (nor are the Rolling Stones, who he talks about more towards the end of the book), and of saying that other than one single he won selling newspaper subscriptions as a kid, he never owned any of their records. He discusses this at some length, and brings up the issue of the Beatles several more times in the book. While of course taste is subjective (as Peart himself acknowledges), he seems to try to make a more objective argument for leaving the Beatles out of his list, and his comments about them strike me as somewhat inconsistent. He accuses the early Beatles (and Elvis and the Stones) of being too derivative of black music, and talks at some length about how they were influenced by others (while neglecting to mention how some of those same others, notably Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend and Brian Wilson – while it is certainly true, for example, that Pet Sounds helped inspire Sgt. Pepper, Pet Sounds in turn had been inspired by Rubber Soul). On the other hand, he acknowledges that the Beatles wrote some “great” songs, and implicitly admits that they were pioneers. At times he displays a fairly thorough knowledge of the Beatles’ catalogue and history, even their solo work (he mentions Ram as an example of good solo work by McCartney), and at other times talks as if he had hardly listened to them at all, such as when he says that when he was a teenager in the late 1960s, he thought that “they seemed more like ‘pop’ music, sometimes almost the dreaded teeny-bopper, bubblegum music my young-musician friends and I so despised.” While one could argue that the Beatles did play (very high-quality) teen music in the early 1960s, there is nothing remotely “bubblegum” about their late 1960s output.
Peart also seems to subscribe to several somewhat inaccurate popular views of John Lennon and Paul McCartney and their relationship. For one thing, he sees Lennon as the edgy, experimental one and McCartney as more conventional. While it is true that many of the Beatles' more obviously experimental tracks were Lennon's, McCartney often played a major role in putting them together (e.g., the tape loops on "Tomorrow Never Knows" and the orchestral freak out on "A Day in the Life"), not to mention the fact that McCartney's songs often were also pioneering in the way they were recorded ("Eleanor Rigby" being an obvious example). Peart quotes McCartney as saying "Strawberry Fields Forever" was "too weird", yet though I've read a fair amount of Beatles-related literature, I've never seen such a quote, and I'm somewhat dubious about its accuracy. In stating his agreement with those who think The White Album should have been cut down to a single album (an argument that I don't want to get into now), he also quotes McCartney as saying in response "Shut up, it's the Beatles' White Album." The quote I've seen is "Come on, it's the Beatles' White Album", which sounds a bit flippant, but is hardly the arrogantly dismissive response Peart has him making. This is not to say Paul could never be arrogant; only that Peart's view is overly negative (on the other hand, I should note that many of his references to McCartney are more positive; aside from mentioning that he did some good solo work, he mentions that he recommended the Who – Peart’s favorite band as a teen – to perform at the Monterey Pop Festival, among other things). He also mentions Lennon's "How Do You Sleep" as illustrating "the depth of his contempt for his former partner", when in fact from what John himself said later it was more of an exaggerated emotional outburst which didn't represent his true feelings toward Paul. In fact that was the nadir of their relationship; a few years later the two were occasionally hanging out together and while their relationship cooled off again somewhat, they did sometimes speak by phone and Lennon spoke positively of McCartney and quite a few of his songs in interviews not long before his death.
In the course of the book, Peart quotes the author Nick Hornby several times. Interestingly, he says he agrees with almost everything Hornby had to say about pop music, except the music itself, as he liked almost nothing Hornby liked, and he guessed that Hornby wouldn't like anything he (Peart) liked, which again shows how subjective taste in music is. In any case, Peart also quotes Hornby on the Beatles, and I think this quote goes to heart of Peart's own ambivalence about them. Basically, Hornby says that in the case of the Beatles "some very good, very pretty, very sharply written, brilliantly produced, and undeniably memorable songs have been credited with almost supernatural power. It's what happens when people are defied." His point is that because of the popular and critical adulation the Beatles received and the unquestionably major influence they had, their songs are no longer seen as just songs, and their work tends to overshadow everything else that happened musically in the 1960s, to the extent that almost everything that happened during the decade gets connected with them. I think Hornby is basically correct here, as I have to admit even I find it hard to look at Beatles songs the same way I look at other songs. As great as the Beatles were, their superiority to other important artists of the time shouldn't be exaggerated (Hornby points out that a similar thing happened with Shakespeare). Basically, I think that Peart. perhaps subconsciously, feels a certain degree of resentment for the way the Beatles tend to overshadow other artists who he likes as much or better, and so he is inclined to be somewhat negative about them. It would also be somewhat understandable if some people who grew up in the 60s may have occasionally gotten tired of hearing the Beatles, as their music was no doubt played a lot (I don't usually want to hear any particular song more than once a day myself, even if I love it). Towards the end of the book, when Peart talks about playing a big concert in Toronto with AC/DC and the Rolling Stones, he remarks that he had never been a big Stones fan and had never owned any of their records other than a solo project by Charlie Watts but that "perhaps, as with the Beatles, I heard them so much it wasn't necessary to own their records!"
Peart several times says that for him one of the most important things about musicians is their artistic integrity. He tends to prefer artists who he perceives as writing and singing from the heart rather than treating it as a job or a way to get rich. I can understand where he's coming from, but then judging someone's artistic integrity is a tricky matter. Some artists who may seem to have a lot of integrity may in fact be much more calculating about their music than they appear to be, and artists who seem to just write and perform commercial music may be perfectly sincere in what they do. In any case, very few artists manage to go through their entire career without ever compromising, and in many cases compromising a little may result in better music. Peart claims that it seem to him when he was a teenager that the Beatles didn't share the "desperate sincerity" he admired, but considering how adventurous they were in the mid to late 60s, it would be hard to claim they were pandering to commercial expectations in any way. He also criticizes the Rolling Stones for agreeing to change "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's Spend Some Time Together" on the Ed Sullivan Show, contrasting it with Jim Morrison defiantly singing "girl, we couldn't get much higher" when performing "Light My Fire" with the Doors on the same show. While I'd agree that in this particular case the Doors look better, I would not assert that this alone means the Doors were a superior band in an overall sense (I'm not a huge fan of either, but I like them both about equally). While an obviously high standard of artistic integrity would be a point in an artist's favor, it would only be a minor factor in determining my listening preferences.
Peart's stories of playing music in Canada and England when he was young are also quite interesting, such as his time playing with a band in England whose van and amplifiers were all stolen, and whose guitarist had a girlfriend who was so jealous of his devotion to music that she sawed his guitar in half. After returning to Canada, he played briefly in a band that did covers of Genesis, Frank Zappa and the Who (I'd be curious what Genesis songs they did, but he doesn't say -- at another point in the book, he praises the double drumming Phil Collins and first Bill Bruford and then Chester Thompson did in concert, but that would have been some years later). It was while playing with this band that he was invited to audition for Rush, whose drummer was quitting the band. He doesn't talk in great detail about his career with Rush, though there are some interesting passages about how they record and how they put together their concerts. Inevitably, though, reading the book did cause quite a few of their songs to play on what Peart would call my "mental transistor radio". One song that has always been a favorite of mine is "Time Stand Still", and it is one that particularly sums up the travel parts of the book: "I'm not looking back but I want to look around me now, see more of the people and the places that surround me now." Of course, in this case he does spend some time looking back, but he allows the reader to join him in doing so. While I may disagree with some of his opinions, overall I for one enjoyed the experience.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Luo Dayou (羅大佑)
The following is an article I wrote a few years ago about Taiwanese singer-songwriter Luo Dayou (羅大佑). It first appeared online on the Taiwan Culture Portal.
Whenever Taiwanese popular music of the 1980s, Taiwanese singer-songwriters or indeed the history of Mandopop (i.e., Mandarin language popular music) in general is being discussed, one name that's almost sure to come up is Luo Dayou (羅大佑; his name is also spelled Lo Tayu). Luo came from a relatively well-off family (his father was a doctor). He began learning piano at six, and later also picked up guitar. Like his father and his older siblings he studied medicine, but his true love was music. In the early 1970s he was the keyboardist in a band which played covers of songs by Western groups like Santana. In late 1977, he got his first job as a songwriter, composing songs for the movie Golden Days (閃亮的日子) starring popular singer Liu Wenzheng (劉文正) and actress/singer Zhang Aijia (張艾嘉), also known as Sylvia Chang. Both the title song and "Song" (歌), the lyrics of which were famed Chinese poet Xu Zhimo (徐志摩)’s translation of a poem by Christina Rossetti, have been covered many times since, as has "The Wind Blows Softly" (風兒輕輕吹), a song Luo wrote for a 1979 film also starring Liu Wenzheng. Luo also wrote more songs for Zhang Aijia, who eventually became his lover. The best known of his songs for her was "Childhood" (童年), a hugely popular track with appeared on Zhang's 1981 album of the same name, which Luo produced. Almost as popular was another track from the same album, "The Story of Time" (光陰的故事).
Even before Zhang Aijia's Childhood had been released, Luo had essentially completed work on his own solo album, but he was having trouble finding a record company that would agree to release it. However, having had great success with Childhood, Rock Records finally agreed to take a chance on Luo's music. Therefore, in 1982, the album Pedantry (之乎者也) was released. Musically, the album was a mix of styles like rock, folk and reggae, and lyrically many of the songs took a critical look at Taiwanese society. The lead track, "Little Town of Lugang" (鹿港小鎮), spoke for the many Taiwanese who had migrated to the big city of Taipei with its expressions of nostalgia for small town life and disillusionment with the modern urban environment. The ironic "Love Song 1980" (戀曲1980) was also a big hit. The title track employed language reminiscent of the Confucian classics in taking a sarcastic look at modern life, though it did not become as well known to the general public since it was banned from the radio. The album sold over a hundred thousand copies, a substantial amount for that time, and is rated by many as the most influential Taiwanese albums of all time.
Luo Dayou followed up his debut with 1983's Masters of the Future (未來的主人翁). Both the title track and another key track, "Phenomena 72" (現象七十二變), were more rock-influenced songs which took a critical look at Taiwanese society, the former looking at a damaged world through the eyes of the children who will inherit it and the second featuring an irony-filled recitation of various features of contemporary Taiwan. Perhaps the best known track from the album, however, was "The Orphan of Asia" (亞細亞的孤兒). The song featured a dedication to Chinese refugees in Southeast Asia, but this was added to mislead the censors, as the song was actually about Taiwan's political isolation. Luo's arrangement for the song was based on his folk rock-style acoustic guitar, but also included a children's choir and most notably a suona, a traditional trumpet-like instrument. In this same period several of Luo's compositions were hits for other artists, including "Is It True" (是否), sung by Su Rui (蘇芮), and "Springtime for the Wild Lily" (野白合也有春天) and "Maxims of Love" (愛的箴言), both performed by Pan Yueyun (潘越雲); "Maxims of Love" was also performed by Deng Lijun (鄧麗君; Teresa Teng).
Luo closed what many fans still regard as his classic period with 1984's Home (家) and one of Taiwan's first live albums, 1985’s Youth Dance (青春舞曲), which commemorated his successive New Year's Eve concerts in 1983 and 1984. Though the more nostalgic and subdued Home contained fan favorites such as the opening track "Impressions of My Hometown" (吾鄉印象), featuring Asian instruments such as guzheng, erhu and yueqin, the gentle title track and the banned "Super Citizens" (超級市民), it did not sell as well as his previous two studio albums. Luo had also finally broken up with his long-time lover Zhang Aijia. Exhausted by the constant media attention, Luo used his live album to announce that he was taking a sabbatical from music. He went to the US, where most of his family had already immigrated, and eventually settled in Hong Kong. He had little involvement with music in this period, though he did write the music for "Tomorrow Will Be Better" (明天會更好), Taiwan's answer to "Do They Know It's Christmas" and "We Are the World", as well as writing a few hits for individual artists, such as "A Flower on the Ocean" (海上花) for Zhenni (甄妮).
In 1988, Luo Dayou returned to the music scene with the album Comrade Lover (愛人同志). A departure from his earlier work, this album featured drum machines, more oblique lyrics and less social commentary. Though the changes displeased some of his fans, the album was a big success, selling over half a million copies and spawning hits such as the massively popular "Love Song 1990" (戀曲1990), "The Way You Are" (妳的樣子) and the title track. Luo showed that he had not completely abandoned sociopolitical commentary with "The Song of the Dwarf" (侏儒之歌), a track on his 1989 Hong Kong re-release of the album attacking Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Also in 1989 he released a pair of albums in which he sang songs that he had originally given to other artists. In 1991, under his new Hong Kong-based music label Music Factory, he released a Cantonese album entitled Queen's Road East (皇后大道東), featuring a variety of Hong Kong singers performing his songs (Luo himself only sang on the title track and the album's sole Mandarin song, "Pearl of the East" [東方之珠]). The album was a huge hit in Hong Kong. In Taiwan later that same year he released Homeland (原鄉), his first album to mainly feature songs in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), though it also included several songs in Mandarin. This album, which included hits like "The Train" (火車) and "Don't Be Afraid, Everyone" (大家免著驚), also featured guest singers on several tracks, and some of the songs were in fact alternate versions of tracks on Queen's Road East. The last of this trio of albums was the Cantonese album Capital (首都), featuring Hong Kong singers and a title track recorded in Beijing.
In 1994, Luo released what proved to be his last solo album for a long time, Love Song 2000 (戀曲2000). The album featured ambitious production and arrangements on tracks like "Red Rose of Taipei" (台北紅玫瑰) and "A Night in Shanghai" (上海之夜) but proved less popular with a public tuned to karaoke-friendly Mandopop. Though he wrote a few songs for other artists in 1995, such as the Hoklo hit "Kite in the Wind" (風吹風吹), and released a pair of Hoklo albums in 1995 and 1996 with a singing group called the OK Chorus (ＯＫ男女合唱團), the first made up of new versions of previous releases and the second mainly of new compositions with lyrics by his collaborator Buhiong (武雄), he basically stopped writing for the following few years, spending most of his time in Hong Kong and New York. He performed a very successful series of concerts in China beginning in 2000, and in 2004 he released his first album in many years, Beautiful Island (美麗島), as well as performing his first concerts in Taiwan in decades. Though the political views he has expressed in recent years have alienated some of his old fans in Taiwan, he remains very popular in China and is still viewed with nostalgia by many in Taiwan. His albums from the 1980s have been frequently cited by many later songwriters as a big source of inspiration. Not only are his songs still heard on the radio today, his influence is also still heard in the songs of many of Taiwan's current talents.
Whenever Taiwanese popular music of the 1980s, Taiwanese singer-songwriters or indeed the history of Mandopop (i.e., Mandarin language popular music) in general is being discussed, one name that's almost sure to come up is Luo Dayou (羅大佑; his name is also spelled Lo Tayu). Luo came from a relatively well-off family (his father was a doctor). He began learning piano at six, and later also picked up guitar. Like his father and his older siblings he studied medicine, but his true love was music. In the early 1970s he was the keyboardist in a band which played covers of songs by Western groups like Santana. In late 1977, he got his first job as a songwriter, composing songs for the movie Golden Days (閃亮的日子) starring popular singer Liu Wenzheng (劉文正) and actress/singer Zhang Aijia (張艾嘉), also known as Sylvia Chang. Both the title song and "Song" (歌), the lyrics of which were famed Chinese poet Xu Zhimo (徐志摩)’s translation of a poem by Christina Rossetti, have been covered many times since, as has "The Wind Blows Softly" (風兒輕輕吹), a song Luo wrote for a 1979 film also starring Liu Wenzheng. Luo also wrote more songs for Zhang Aijia, who eventually became his lover. The best known of his songs for her was "Childhood" (童年), a hugely popular track with appeared on Zhang's 1981 album of the same name, which Luo produced. Almost as popular was another track from the same album, "The Story of Time" (光陰的故事).
Even before Zhang Aijia's Childhood had been released, Luo had essentially completed work on his own solo album, but he was having trouble finding a record company that would agree to release it. However, having had great success with Childhood, Rock Records finally agreed to take a chance on Luo's music. Therefore, in 1982, the album Pedantry (之乎者也) was released. Musically, the album was a mix of styles like rock, folk and reggae, and lyrically many of the songs took a critical look at Taiwanese society. The lead track, "Little Town of Lugang" (鹿港小鎮), spoke for the many Taiwanese who had migrated to the big city of Taipei with its expressions of nostalgia for small town life and disillusionment with the modern urban environment. The ironic "Love Song 1980" (戀曲1980) was also a big hit. The title track employed language reminiscent of the Confucian classics in taking a sarcastic look at modern life, though it did not become as well known to the general public since it was banned from the radio. The album sold over a hundred thousand copies, a substantial amount for that time, and is rated by many as the most influential Taiwanese albums of all time.
Luo Dayou followed up his debut with 1983's Masters of the Future (未來的主人翁). Both the title track and another key track, "Phenomena 72" (現象七十二變), were more rock-influenced songs which took a critical look at Taiwanese society, the former looking at a damaged world through the eyes of the children who will inherit it and the second featuring an irony-filled recitation of various features of contemporary Taiwan. Perhaps the best known track from the album, however, was "The Orphan of Asia" (亞細亞的孤兒). The song featured a dedication to Chinese refugees in Southeast Asia, but this was added to mislead the censors, as the song was actually about Taiwan's political isolation. Luo's arrangement for the song was based on his folk rock-style acoustic guitar, but also included a children's choir and most notably a suona, a traditional trumpet-like instrument. In this same period several of Luo's compositions were hits for other artists, including "Is It True" (是否), sung by Su Rui (蘇芮), and "Springtime for the Wild Lily" (野白合也有春天) and "Maxims of Love" (愛的箴言), both performed by Pan Yueyun (潘越雲); "Maxims of Love" was also performed by Deng Lijun (鄧麗君; Teresa Teng).
Luo closed what many fans still regard as his classic period with 1984's Home (家) and one of Taiwan's first live albums, 1985’s Youth Dance (青春舞曲), which commemorated his successive New Year's Eve concerts in 1983 and 1984. Though the more nostalgic and subdued Home contained fan favorites such as the opening track "Impressions of My Hometown" (吾鄉印象), featuring Asian instruments such as guzheng, erhu and yueqin, the gentle title track and the banned "Super Citizens" (超級市民), it did not sell as well as his previous two studio albums. Luo had also finally broken up with his long-time lover Zhang Aijia. Exhausted by the constant media attention, Luo used his live album to announce that he was taking a sabbatical from music. He went to the US, where most of his family had already immigrated, and eventually settled in Hong Kong. He had little involvement with music in this period, though he did write the music for "Tomorrow Will Be Better" (明天會更好), Taiwan's answer to "Do They Know It's Christmas" and "We Are the World", as well as writing a few hits for individual artists, such as "A Flower on the Ocean" (海上花) for Zhenni (甄妮).
In 1988, Luo Dayou returned to the music scene with the album Comrade Lover (愛人同志). A departure from his earlier work, this album featured drum machines, more oblique lyrics and less social commentary. Though the changes displeased some of his fans, the album was a big success, selling over half a million copies and spawning hits such as the massively popular "Love Song 1990" (戀曲1990), "The Way You Are" (妳的樣子) and the title track. Luo showed that he had not completely abandoned sociopolitical commentary with "The Song of the Dwarf" (侏儒之歌), a track on his 1989 Hong Kong re-release of the album attacking Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Also in 1989 he released a pair of albums in which he sang songs that he had originally given to other artists. In 1991, under his new Hong Kong-based music label Music Factory, he released a Cantonese album entitled Queen's Road East (皇后大道東), featuring a variety of Hong Kong singers performing his songs (Luo himself only sang on the title track and the album's sole Mandarin song, "Pearl of the East" [東方之珠]). The album was a huge hit in Hong Kong. In Taiwan later that same year he released Homeland (原鄉), his first album to mainly feature songs in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), though it also included several songs in Mandarin. This album, which included hits like "The Train" (火車) and "Don't Be Afraid, Everyone" (大家免著驚), also featured guest singers on several tracks, and some of the songs were in fact alternate versions of tracks on Queen's Road East. The last of this trio of albums was the Cantonese album Capital (首都), featuring Hong Kong singers and a title track recorded in Beijing.
In 1994, Luo released what proved to be his last solo album for a long time, Love Song 2000 (戀曲2000). The album featured ambitious production and arrangements on tracks like "Red Rose of Taipei" (台北紅玫瑰) and "A Night in Shanghai" (上海之夜) but proved less popular with a public tuned to karaoke-friendly Mandopop. Though he wrote a few songs for other artists in 1995, such as the Hoklo hit "Kite in the Wind" (風吹風吹), and released a pair of Hoklo albums in 1995 and 1996 with a singing group called the OK Chorus (ＯＫ男女合唱團), the first made up of new versions of previous releases and the second mainly of new compositions with lyrics by his collaborator Buhiong (武雄), he basically stopped writing for the following few years, spending most of his time in Hong Kong and New York. He performed a very successful series of concerts in China beginning in 2000, and in 2004 he released his first album in many years, Beautiful Island (美麗島), as well as performing his first concerts in Taiwan in decades. Though the political views he has expressed in recent years have alienated some of his old fans in Taiwan, he remains very popular in China and is still viewed with nostalgia by many in Taiwan. His albums from the 1980s have been frequently cited by many later songwriters as a big source of inspiration. Not only are his songs still heard on the radio today, his influence is also still heard in the songs of many of Taiwan's current talents.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Tony Banks of Genesis
As it happens, a number of my favorite bands, such as the Beatles, Queen, and Genesis, have multiple songwriters. This is not entirely coincidental, of course, because a band with more than one songwriter will often have a greater variety of song styles, something I always appreciate. When looking at the careers of bands like these, it’s sometimes fun to separate out the contributions of each songwriter in the band, so I will be making a number of blog entries of this sort in the future.
Around the time I was in college, I was particularly into Genesis, collecting all of their music and quite a bit of the various band members’ solo work (incidentally, my starting point was the band’s mid 1980s work, so I’ve never had the frankly irrational prejudice some have against their more “pop” sounding material). While nowadays there are a number of artists I listen to more often, I recently acquired the Genesis box sets with the new remixes of their albums, so I have been listening to a lot of their music. Since March 27 is the 62nd birthday of Tony Banks (and his second classical album is scheduled to be released this week), it seemed like an appropriate time to do an article on him and his work with Genesis.
Tony Banks (full name Anthony George Banks) was a founding member of Genesis and, along with Mike Rutherford, the only member of the band who was with it through its entire history (at the moment the band is essentially defunct, though a slight possibility remains that they may get together again someday). His primary instrument was the keyboard, but in the band’s early years he also played acoustic guitar on some songs, and he also sang some backing vocals. A number of people both in and outside the band have commented that Banks was in many ways the group’s most important member. His keyboards were generally the most prominent part of the band’s sound, and probably no other member contributed more in the songwriting department, at least as far as music was concerned (in the early years Peter Gabriel wrote a somewhat larger share of the lyrics, though Banks wrote a fair amount, and continued to contribute a lot of the band’s lyrics all the way through the Phil Collins era). He is highly regarded by his fellow keyboard players, even though he was never as flashy as some of his fellow progressive rock keyboardists like Keith Emerson. As a number of critics have pointed out, this was chiefly because in Genesis, the songs came first; Banks played in ways that served the song, rather than to show off.
Genesis released its first single in 1968 and its first album in 1969. The band released a total of six albums with Peter Gabriel as lead singer, up to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in 1974. On all these albums, the songs were credited to the group as a whole. However, in numerous interviews, the band members have revealed that many songs were written by individual members or by various combinations within the band. Even when most or all members contributed to a song, it was often the case that particular sections were written by one or two of them (for example, the opening section of “Supper’s Ready”, which is reprised several times, was written by Tony Banks, the Willow Farm section of the same song was by Gabriel, and the Apocalypse section was by Banks, Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins). While no information is available on some songs, from those that have been discussed in interviews it is evident that Tony Banks contributed to the majority of the songs from this period in some way, and in a number of cases he was the main or only songwriter.
For the first three albums after Peter Gabriel left and Phil Collins took over on vocals, songwriting attribution is fairly straightforward, as songs were credited individually, though for songs where credit is shared it is not always clear who did what, unless this has been mentioned in interviews (for example, “Entangled” is credited to Steve Hackett and Tony Banks; in fact, Hackett wrote the lyrics and the music for the verse sections, while the music for the chorus was by Banks). But starting with the 1980 album Duke, the three remaining members (Banks, Collins and Rutherford) wrote most of the songs together. These were genuine collaborations, written by the three as they jammed together. However, even in this period the music of some songs seems to have come a bit more from one or another member of the band, and the lyrics were generally written by one person, often the one who contributed more musically to the song, or at least felt most attached to the music that had been written.
So when it comes to listing the highlights of Tony Banks’s songwriting contributions to Genesis, from the early years I have selected a few songs from those which based on interviews can be mainly (or in two cases solely) attributed to him. Of course there are many others which he wrote key parts of, such as the abovementioned “Supper’s Ready”, “The Return of the Giant Hogweed”, “Get ‘Em Out By Friday” and many more, and there are other songs that he may well have written most or all of but have not been mentioned in interviews (for instance, I strongly suspect that he wrote “Seven Stones”, but I’ve never seen any quote to confirm of this -- several online sources do attribute the lyrics to him, but they also attribute the lyrics of "The Fountain of Salmacis" to Mike Rutherford, when Banks stated in Genesis: Chapter & Verse that he and Peter wrote them). For the late 1970s I included the best of the songs attributed solely to him (co-written songs have been excluded, even if his contribution was fairly substantial). From the remaining albums I’ve picked the best of the songs that seem musically to be primarily his (though this is obviously guesswork in many cases) and which he is known to have written the lyrics to, plus an instrumental that features a lot of his keyboard playing. On the first CD, I have also included “Shepherd”, a song recorded in 1970 that was first released in 1998. I have seen no information about who wrote this, but it is piano-based, which points to Banks (though Gabriel and Anthony Phillips also occasionally wrote on piano), and more importantly, Banks actually sings some lead vocals on the song. Not only does this also point to him being the author, but as the only Genesis recording to feature him on lead vocals, it seems appropriate to include it on that basis alone.
My intention was originally to select songs for a single CD, but it proved too difficult to fit everything I wanted to pick onto one CD (it doesn’t help that many of the songs are eight or nine minutes long). So I expanded it to 2 CDs, and even then had to limit myself a lot, particularly on songs from the early and late period. Once again, I want to emphasize that I restricted myself to songs which were entirely or mostly written by Banks, i.e., well over 50%, so songs like "Supper's Ready" (where he probably wrote a slightly larger share of the music than anyone else, but no more than half of it, and none of the lyrics) weren't even considered. Even of those songs that were considered, I put good songs that he wrote all of over great songs that he wrote most of. As a result, many of the “honorable mentions” below are as good or even better than the songs I picked, but as they were less fully attributable to Banks, I decided to leave them out (a desire to include tracks from as many albums as possible also played a role, as did space; for instance, I would have picked "Dodo/Lurker" over "Keep It Dark", but it was too long). The CDs are mostly chronological, though “Firth of Fifth” seemed the best opening track and “Afterglow” the best closer on the first CD.
It seems appropriate here to add a brief assessment of Banks’ songwriting as shown in his Genesis work (I’ll talk about his solo work momentarily). Musically, as I said earlier, he is in many ways the most important member of Genesis, and as I like the band, of course I like most of the music Banks wrote for them. Throughout their career, his keyboards are one of the main things that kept the band sounding interesting, with the variety of textures and sounds that he used, whether it was on the early material with Peter Gabriel or during their commercial peak in the 1980s. He wrote many of the band’s most outstanding epics, such as “Firth of Fifth” and “One for the Vine”, as well as contributing excellent melodies for many of the group’s best short songs like “That’s All”. In fact, I am inclined to agree with those who say that he is the most important member of the band. A band with him and any single other member of the classic group (e.g., Rutherford, as on Calling All Stations, but Collins, Gabriel or Hackett would do as well) would probably still sound like Genesis, but the same would not be true of any two of the rest. This is not to minimize the contributions of the others, of course. The material that the others contributed, which was often very different stylistically, provided a balance to what Banks wrote, and even on songs he wrote entirely on his own, the playing and singing of the other members of the group helped bring it to life. For both of these reasons, Banks’ solo work has not been nearly as consistent as his work with Genesis.
This is not to say that even his Genesis work was perfect. He did sometimes get slightly carried away with all the layers of keyboards he put on some songs, particularly on albums like And Then There Were Three. His most obvious weak point is lyrics, where he was very inconsistent. There aren’t many songs where I think the lyrics he wrote are bad all the way through, but he frequently wrote some rather awkward lines. On the other hand, he also wrote some lyrics that were quite good, often in the same song as the bad ones; “Burning Rope”, for instance, has some great lines and some that are, well, not so good, and the same can be said of many songs he wrote. There are a few which are pretty solid all the way through, like “Home by the Sea”, and I would say that on the whole I like more of the lyrics that he wrote with Genesis than I dislike – it’s just that the occasional bad lines do detract from otherwise good work. He himself admitted that it was only when he did vocal demos for "Me and Sarah Jane" and "Keep It Dark" that he realized "what I had been putting Pete and Phil through over the years...giving them weird lyrics like 'bread-bin'." Speaking of Banks' lyrics, I might note here that I’ve noticed a number of people expressing a particular dislike for the lyrics of “Time Table”, which Banks confirmed he wrote in an offhand comment in the 2007 Reissues Interview, but I think they are actually pretty decent (I suspect the dislike has more to do with the fact that the song is short and relatively simple, whereas a lot of prog rock fans reject anything that is less than 6 minutes long with multiple key changes and wordy, obtuse lyrics; I like the latter kind of song myself on occasion, just not exclusively…but I digress).
Another area where Banks is somewhat unfairly the target of critical comments is in his relationship with other band members. It is true that personality played a role in Banks' dominance of the group almost as much as his obvious talent; about the band's early years, he has been quoted as saying "my tastes controlled the group more than the others, perhaps because I got the most unpleasant if people disagreed with me". From what both he and the others have said in multiple interviews, Banks could be quite insistent about getting his way, and he and Peter Gabriel, in particular, argued frequently. Steve Hackett in the period after he left also complained about Banks having too much control. In Genesis: Chapter & Verse, Banks himself commented that "[Hackett] said...that I was controlling it too much -- and he's probably right. I think he always thought that for some reason I had it in for him, but I really didn't. That's just my way. I always appear to be like that." Banks is also known for being extremely reserved; several new members of the group, from Hackett to touring member Daryl Stuermer, commented that at first they thought Banks disliked them or their playing because he always looked grim and never said anything. But the idea that some perpetuate that he and Hackett, for example, hate each other is clearly absurd to anyone who actually bothers to read their interviews closely. Judging from interviews, Banks is in fact very honest and forthright even about his own flaws, as the above quotes show, and probably quite likeable once you get past his initial reserve (I suspect he has also mellowed as he's gotten older). He also has an extremely sharp memory, and is perhaps the most informative about the band's history. I remember reading one interview with him and Mike Rutherford where the interviewer for some reason gave them a brief trivia quiz about the Genesis back catalog. Rutherford couldn't answer any of the questions, but Banks got them all of them. If he wasn't a brilliant musician, he'd probably make a good historian, like his former bandmate Phil Collins, who recently published a book about the Alamo.
Anyway, enough rambling, here are my Best of Tony Banks with Genesis CDs:
The Best of Tony Banks with Genesis
CD1
Firth of Fifth (Banks [one source says Rutherford helped on lyrics])
Shepherd (Unknown; probably Banks and perhaps Gabriel)
Fountain of Salmacis (Music: mostly Banks; Lyrics: Banks and Gabriel)
Time Table (Banks)
Anyway (Music: Banks; Lyrics: Gabriel)
Mad Man Moon (Banks)
A Trick of the Tail (Banks)
One For The Vine (Banks)
Undertow (Banks)
Burning Rope (Banks)
Many Too Many (Banks)
The Lady Lies (Banks)
Afterglow (Banks)
Honorable Mentions: Seven Stones (primarily Banks), Watcher of the Skies (Music: Banks[primarily]/Gabriel/Collins[/Hackett/Rutherford?]; Lyrics: Banks/Rutherford), The Cinema Show (second section) (Music: Banks/Rutherford/Collins), The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Music: Banks/Gabriel; Lyrics: Gabriel), The Lamia (Music: Banks; Lyrics: Gabriel), In the Cage (Music: Banks[primarily]/Collins/Hackett/Rutherford; Lyrics: Gabriel), The Colony of Slippermen (Music: Banks[primarily]/Collins/Hackett/Rutherford; Lyrics: Gabriel), Robbery, Assault and Battery (Banks/Collins), All in a Mouse’s Night (Banks)
CD2
The Day the Light Went Out (Banks)
Guide Vocal (Banks)
Heathaze (Banks)
Cul-De-Sac (Banks)
Evidence of Autumn (Banks)
Me and Sarah Jane (Banks)
Keep It Dark (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Silver Rainbow (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Domino (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
The Brazilian (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford)
Feeding The Fire (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Fading Lights (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Honorable Mentions: Duchess (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), Duke’s Travels/Duke’s End (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), Dodo/Lurker (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), Do the Neurotic (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford), Living Forever (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), On the Shoreline (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), Alien Afternoon (Music: Banks/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), Uncertain Weather (Music: Banks/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), One Man's Fool (Music: Banks/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Tony Banks Solo
As I mentioned above, I would say that Tony Banks did most of his best work to date with Genesis. This is not to say, however, that he didn’t have any good solo songs. There is easily enough excellent material to fill a CD on his five solo albums plus his Soundtracks album, even excluding his classical CD (which is also pretty good). His first album, A Curious Feeling, was the one for which I had the most difficulty picking out particular tracks. This is in part because it is a concept album. Musically it is his only solo album that is progressive rock, and there are quite a few good bits scattered throughout. Some of the keyboard sounds he uses I don’t really care for (though he was far from the only late 1970s keyboardist with this problem), but overall the album is fairly strong musically, if not equal to most Genesis albums. The album’s main flaw is the lyrics, which include a relatively high proportion of cringe-worth lines. Banks has said that he originally based the album on the excellent story Flowers for Algernon, but that while working on it he learned that a stage musical based on the same story was set to premier before the album came out, and he was advised to avoid using the same story in case the musical was a hit (which it wasn’t). So he went back and rewrote some of the lyrics to change the overall story. He now says he regrets not sticking to Flowers for Algernon, and I heartily agree, as the new story is not nearly as good and the song that is the key to the new plot, “The Lie”, contains some of the album’s worst lyrics (which is all the more regrettable because musically it’s quite good, perhaps the best on the album). But none of the songs here is among his best lyrical efforts, and since the many good musical moments are equally spread among different songs, it was hard to settle on just two or three. Really the album should be heard in its entirety at least a few times, weak lyrics and all.
Of his other albums, I would say The Fugitive and Still are definitely the best (in fact I like them a little better than A Curious Feeling overall). Still in particular has a lot of excellent songs. They sound more varied than the songs on his other albums, too, in part because he used five different singers (including himself), though I think he also varied his songwriting more on this album than elsewhere (it may also not be entirely coincidence that three of the best songs are the ones on which his guest vocalists wrote the lyrics, though a couple of the lyrics he wrote himself are quite good). The Fugitive is the only album where Banks himself sang lead on all the songs (on Bankstatement and Still he sings one song each), and while he’s not a great singer, he actually does a respectable job on most of them. While the album is very much 1980s pop rock, the songs are more complex than most pop songs, and the distinctive Banks sound that Genesis fans are familiar with pops up fairly often. There are still some songs here that don’t impress me much, and a few on Still as well, but overall these two albums are worth seeking out. His other two albums, Bankstatement and Strictly Inc., are noticeably weaker, though both have some good moments. Several songs on Bankstatement are decent, though the only real standout track is “The Border”. Strictly Inc. is slightly better, though I have to say I haven’t listened to it as much (by the time it came out I was not obsessed with Genesis the way I had been a few years earlier, and I had a lot of other CDs to listen to).
Best of Tony Banks Solo
(All songs written by Tony Banks except where otherwise noted)
The Waters of Lethe
For A While
This Is Love
At the Edge of Night
Moving Under
Shortcut To Somewhere (Lyrics: Fish)
The Border
I Wanna Change The Score (Lyrics: Nick Kershaw)
Water Out Of Wine
Another Murder Of A Day (Lyrics: Fish)
The Final Curtain
An Island In The Darkness
Honorable Mentions: From the Undertow, A Curious Feeling, Forever Morning, You, And The Wheels Keep Turning, Raincloud, A House Needs a Roof, Red Day On Blue Street (Lyrics: Nick Kershaw), Walls Of Sound
Around the time I was in college, I was particularly into Genesis, collecting all of their music and quite a bit of the various band members’ solo work (incidentally, my starting point was the band’s mid 1980s work, so I’ve never had the frankly irrational prejudice some have against their more “pop” sounding material). While nowadays there are a number of artists I listen to more often, I recently acquired the Genesis box sets with the new remixes of their albums, so I have been listening to a lot of their music. Since March 27 is the 62nd birthday of Tony Banks (and his second classical album is scheduled to be released this week), it seemed like an appropriate time to do an article on him and his work with Genesis.
Tony Banks (full name Anthony George Banks) was a founding member of Genesis and, along with Mike Rutherford, the only member of the band who was with it through its entire history (at the moment the band is essentially defunct, though a slight possibility remains that they may get together again someday). His primary instrument was the keyboard, but in the band’s early years he also played acoustic guitar on some songs, and he also sang some backing vocals. A number of people both in and outside the band have commented that Banks was in many ways the group’s most important member. His keyboards were generally the most prominent part of the band’s sound, and probably no other member contributed more in the songwriting department, at least as far as music was concerned (in the early years Peter Gabriel wrote a somewhat larger share of the lyrics, though Banks wrote a fair amount, and continued to contribute a lot of the band’s lyrics all the way through the Phil Collins era). He is highly regarded by his fellow keyboard players, even though he was never as flashy as some of his fellow progressive rock keyboardists like Keith Emerson. As a number of critics have pointed out, this was chiefly because in Genesis, the songs came first; Banks played in ways that served the song, rather than to show off.
Genesis released its first single in 1968 and its first album in 1969. The band released a total of six albums with Peter Gabriel as lead singer, up to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in 1974. On all these albums, the songs were credited to the group as a whole. However, in numerous interviews, the band members have revealed that many songs were written by individual members or by various combinations within the band. Even when most or all members contributed to a song, it was often the case that particular sections were written by one or two of them (for example, the opening section of “Supper’s Ready”, which is reprised several times, was written by Tony Banks, the Willow Farm section of the same song was by Gabriel, and the Apocalypse section was by Banks, Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins). While no information is available on some songs, from those that have been discussed in interviews it is evident that Tony Banks contributed to the majority of the songs from this period in some way, and in a number of cases he was the main or only songwriter.
For the first three albums after Peter Gabriel left and Phil Collins took over on vocals, songwriting attribution is fairly straightforward, as songs were credited individually, though for songs where credit is shared it is not always clear who did what, unless this has been mentioned in interviews (for example, “Entangled” is credited to Steve Hackett and Tony Banks; in fact, Hackett wrote the lyrics and the music for the verse sections, while the music for the chorus was by Banks). But starting with the 1980 album Duke, the three remaining members (Banks, Collins and Rutherford) wrote most of the songs together. These were genuine collaborations, written by the three as they jammed together. However, even in this period the music of some songs seems to have come a bit more from one or another member of the band, and the lyrics were generally written by one person, often the one who contributed more musically to the song, or at least felt most attached to the music that had been written.
So when it comes to listing the highlights of Tony Banks’s songwriting contributions to Genesis, from the early years I have selected a few songs from those which based on interviews can be mainly (or in two cases solely) attributed to him. Of course there are many others which he wrote key parts of, such as the abovementioned “Supper’s Ready”, “The Return of the Giant Hogweed”, “Get ‘Em Out By Friday” and many more, and there are other songs that he may well have written most or all of but have not been mentioned in interviews (for instance, I strongly suspect that he wrote “Seven Stones”, but I’ve never seen any quote to confirm of this -- several online sources do attribute the lyrics to him, but they also attribute the lyrics of "The Fountain of Salmacis" to Mike Rutherford, when Banks stated in Genesis: Chapter & Verse that he and Peter wrote them). For the late 1970s I included the best of the songs attributed solely to him (co-written songs have been excluded, even if his contribution was fairly substantial). From the remaining albums I’ve picked the best of the songs that seem musically to be primarily his (though this is obviously guesswork in many cases) and which he is known to have written the lyrics to, plus an instrumental that features a lot of his keyboard playing. On the first CD, I have also included “Shepherd”, a song recorded in 1970 that was first released in 1998. I have seen no information about who wrote this, but it is piano-based, which points to Banks (though Gabriel and Anthony Phillips also occasionally wrote on piano), and more importantly, Banks actually sings some lead vocals on the song. Not only does this also point to him being the author, but as the only Genesis recording to feature him on lead vocals, it seems appropriate to include it on that basis alone.
My intention was originally to select songs for a single CD, but it proved too difficult to fit everything I wanted to pick onto one CD (it doesn’t help that many of the songs are eight or nine minutes long). So I expanded it to 2 CDs, and even then had to limit myself a lot, particularly on songs from the early and late period. Once again, I want to emphasize that I restricted myself to songs which were entirely or mostly written by Banks, i.e., well over 50%, so songs like "Supper's Ready" (where he probably wrote a slightly larger share of the music than anyone else, but no more than half of it, and none of the lyrics) weren't even considered. Even of those songs that were considered, I put good songs that he wrote all of over great songs that he wrote most of. As a result, many of the “honorable mentions” below are as good or even better than the songs I picked, but as they were less fully attributable to Banks, I decided to leave them out (a desire to include tracks from as many albums as possible also played a role, as did space; for instance, I would have picked "Dodo/Lurker" over "Keep It Dark", but it was too long). The CDs are mostly chronological, though “Firth of Fifth” seemed the best opening track and “Afterglow” the best closer on the first CD.
It seems appropriate here to add a brief assessment of Banks’ songwriting as shown in his Genesis work (I’ll talk about his solo work momentarily). Musically, as I said earlier, he is in many ways the most important member of Genesis, and as I like the band, of course I like most of the music Banks wrote for them. Throughout their career, his keyboards are one of the main things that kept the band sounding interesting, with the variety of textures and sounds that he used, whether it was on the early material with Peter Gabriel or during their commercial peak in the 1980s. He wrote many of the band’s most outstanding epics, such as “Firth of Fifth” and “One for the Vine”, as well as contributing excellent melodies for many of the group’s best short songs like “That’s All”. In fact, I am inclined to agree with those who say that he is the most important member of the band. A band with him and any single other member of the classic group (e.g., Rutherford, as on Calling All Stations, but Collins, Gabriel or Hackett would do as well) would probably still sound like Genesis, but the same would not be true of any two of the rest. This is not to minimize the contributions of the others, of course. The material that the others contributed, which was often very different stylistically, provided a balance to what Banks wrote, and even on songs he wrote entirely on his own, the playing and singing of the other members of the group helped bring it to life. For both of these reasons, Banks’ solo work has not been nearly as consistent as his work with Genesis.
This is not to say that even his Genesis work was perfect. He did sometimes get slightly carried away with all the layers of keyboards he put on some songs, particularly on albums like And Then There Were Three. His most obvious weak point is lyrics, where he was very inconsistent. There aren’t many songs where I think the lyrics he wrote are bad all the way through, but he frequently wrote some rather awkward lines. On the other hand, he also wrote some lyrics that were quite good, often in the same song as the bad ones; “Burning Rope”, for instance, has some great lines and some that are, well, not so good, and the same can be said of many songs he wrote. There are a few which are pretty solid all the way through, like “Home by the Sea”, and I would say that on the whole I like more of the lyrics that he wrote with Genesis than I dislike – it’s just that the occasional bad lines do detract from otherwise good work. He himself admitted that it was only when he did vocal demos for "Me and Sarah Jane" and "Keep It Dark" that he realized "what I had been putting Pete and Phil through over the years...giving them weird lyrics like 'bread-bin'." Speaking of Banks' lyrics, I might note here that I’ve noticed a number of people expressing a particular dislike for the lyrics of “Time Table”, which Banks confirmed he wrote in an offhand comment in the 2007 Reissues Interview, but I think they are actually pretty decent (I suspect the dislike has more to do with the fact that the song is short and relatively simple, whereas a lot of prog rock fans reject anything that is less than 6 minutes long with multiple key changes and wordy, obtuse lyrics; I like the latter kind of song myself on occasion, just not exclusively…but I digress).
Another area where Banks is somewhat unfairly the target of critical comments is in his relationship with other band members. It is true that personality played a role in Banks' dominance of the group almost as much as his obvious talent; about the band's early years, he has been quoted as saying "my tastes controlled the group more than the others, perhaps because I got the most unpleasant if people disagreed with me". From what both he and the others have said in multiple interviews, Banks could be quite insistent about getting his way, and he and Peter Gabriel, in particular, argued frequently. Steve Hackett in the period after he left also complained about Banks having too much control. In Genesis: Chapter & Verse, Banks himself commented that "[Hackett] said...that I was controlling it too much -- and he's probably right. I think he always thought that for some reason I had it in for him, but I really didn't. That's just my way. I always appear to be like that." Banks is also known for being extremely reserved; several new members of the group, from Hackett to touring member Daryl Stuermer, commented that at first they thought Banks disliked them or their playing because he always looked grim and never said anything. But the idea that some perpetuate that he and Hackett, for example, hate each other is clearly absurd to anyone who actually bothers to read their interviews closely. Judging from interviews, Banks is in fact very honest and forthright even about his own flaws, as the above quotes show, and probably quite likeable once you get past his initial reserve (I suspect he has also mellowed as he's gotten older). He also has an extremely sharp memory, and is perhaps the most informative about the band's history. I remember reading one interview with him and Mike Rutherford where the interviewer for some reason gave them a brief trivia quiz about the Genesis back catalog. Rutherford couldn't answer any of the questions, but Banks got them all of them. If he wasn't a brilliant musician, he'd probably make a good historian, like his former bandmate Phil Collins, who recently published a book about the Alamo.
Anyway, enough rambling, here are my Best of Tony Banks with Genesis CDs:
The Best of Tony Banks with Genesis
CD1
Firth of Fifth (Banks [one source says Rutherford helped on lyrics])
Shepherd (Unknown; probably Banks and perhaps Gabriel)
Fountain of Salmacis (Music: mostly Banks; Lyrics: Banks and Gabriel)
Time Table (Banks)
Anyway (Music: Banks; Lyrics: Gabriel)
Mad Man Moon (Banks)
A Trick of the Tail (Banks)
One For The Vine (Banks)
Undertow (Banks)
Burning Rope (Banks)
Many Too Many (Banks)
The Lady Lies (Banks)
Afterglow (Banks)
Honorable Mentions: Seven Stones (primarily Banks), Watcher of the Skies (Music: Banks[primarily]/Gabriel/Collins[/Hackett/Rutherford?]; Lyrics: Banks/Rutherford), The Cinema Show (second section) (Music: Banks/Rutherford/Collins), The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Music: Banks/Gabriel; Lyrics: Gabriel), The Lamia (Music: Banks; Lyrics: Gabriel), In the Cage (Music: Banks[primarily]/Collins/Hackett/Rutherford; Lyrics: Gabriel), The Colony of Slippermen (Music: Banks[primarily]/Collins/Hackett/Rutherford; Lyrics: Gabriel), Robbery, Assault and Battery (Banks/Collins), All in a Mouse’s Night (Banks)
CD2
The Day the Light Went Out (Banks)
Guide Vocal (Banks)
Heathaze (Banks)
Cul-De-Sac (Banks)
Evidence of Autumn (Banks)
Me and Sarah Jane (Banks)
Keep It Dark (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Silver Rainbow (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Domino (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
The Brazilian (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford)
Feeding The Fire (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Fading Lights (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Honorable Mentions: Duchess (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), Duke’s Travels/Duke’s End (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), Dodo/Lurker (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), Do the Neurotic (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford), Living Forever (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), On the Shoreline (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), Alien Afternoon (Music: Banks/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), Uncertain Weather (Music: Banks/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks), One Man's Fool (Music: Banks/Rutherford; Lyrics: Banks)
Tony Banks Solo
As I mentioned above, I would say that Tony Banks did most of his best work to date with Genesis. This is not to say, however, that he didn’t have any good solo songs. There is easily enough excellent material to fill a CD on his five solo albums plus his Soundtracks album, even excluding his classical CD (which is also pretty good). His first album, A Curious Feeling, was the one for which I had the most difficulty picking out particular tracks. This is in part because it is a concept album. Musically it is his only solo album that is progressive rock, and there are quite a few good bits scattered throughout. Some of the keyboard sounds he uses I don’t really care for (though he was far from the only late 1970s keyboardist with this problem), but overall the album is fairly strong musically, if not equal to most Genesis albums. The album’s main flaw is the lyrics, which include a relatively high proportion of cringe-worth lines. Banks has said that he originally based the album on the excellent story Flowers for Algernon, but that while working on it he learned that a stage musical based on the same story was set to premier before the album came out, and he was advised to avoid using the same story in case the musical was a hit (which it wasn’t). So he went back and rewrote some of the lyrics to change the overall story. He now says he regrets not sticking to Flowers for Algernon, and I heartily agree, as the new story is not nearly as good and the song that is the key to the new plot, “The Lie”, contains some of the album’s worst lyrics (which is all the more regrettable because musically it’s quite good, perhaps the best on the album). But none of the songs here is among his best lyrical efforts, and since the many good musical moments are equally spread among different songs, it was hard to settle on just two or three. Really the album should be heard in its entirety at least a few times, weak lyrics and all.
Of his other albums, I would say The Fugitive and Still are definitely the best (in fact I like them a little better than A Curious Feeling overall). Still in particular has a lot of excellent songs. They sound more varied than the songs on his other albums, too, in part because he used five different singers (including himself), though I think he also varied his songwriting more on this album than elsewhere (it may also not be entirely coincidence that three of the best songs are the ones on which his guest vocalists wrote the lyrics, though a couple of the lyrics he wrote himself are quite good). The Fugitive is the only album where Banks himself sang lead on all the songs (on Bankstatement and Still he sings one song each), and while he’s not a great singer, he actually does a respectable job on most of them. While the album is very much 1980s pop rock, the songs are more complex than most pop songs, and the distinctive Banks sound that Genesis fans are familiar with pops up fairly often. There are still some songs here that don’t impress me much, and a few on Still as well, but overall these two albums are worth seeking out. His other two albums, Bankstatement and Strictly Inc., are noticeably weaker, though both have some good moments. Several songs on Bankstatement are decent, though the only real standout track is “The Border”. Strictly Inc. is slightly better, though I have to say I haven’t listened to it as much (by the time it came out I was not obsessed with Genesis the way I had been a few years earlier, and I had a lot of other CDs to listen to).
Best of Tony Banks Solo
(All songs written by Tony Banks except where otherwise noted)
The Waters of Lethe
For A While
This Is Love
At the Edge of Night
Moving Under
Shortcut To Somewhere (Lyrics: Fish)
The Border
I Wanna Change The Score (Lyrics: Nick Kershaw)
Water Out Of Wine
Another Murder Of A Day (Lyrics: Fish)
The Final Curtain
An Island In The Darkness
Honorable Mentions: From the Undertow, A Curious Feeling, Forever Morning, You, And The Wheels Keep Turning, Raincloud, A House Needs a Roof, Red Day On Blue Street (Lyrics: Nick Kershaw), Walls Of Sound
Monday, March 19, 2012
Album Review – Sail Away by Randy Newman
Album Title: Sail Away
Artist: Randy Newman
Release Date: May 1972
Side One
Sail Away
Lonely at the Top
He Gives Us All His Love
Last Night I Had a Dream
Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear
Old Man
Side Two
Political Science
Burn On
Memo to My Son
Dayton, Ohio - 1903
You Can Leave Your Hat On
God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)
All songs written by Randy Newman
Randy Newman is one of the greatest American songwriters of the last half century, and Sail Away is, in my opinion and that of many others, his best album. One thing that I should acknowledge from the outset is that, like another great American songwriter named Bob Dylan, Randy Newman doesn’t have the most attractive voice out there. Therefore, many listeners may enjoy his songs more when they are sung by others (most of the songs on this album, like many of his other songs, have been covered by other artists). However, there is usually something to be said for hearing songs sung by the person who wrote them, and that is particularly true of Randy Newman’s songs, which are generally full of an irony that others often can’t convey like he can, if they even realize it’s there in the first place.
The ironic nature of Newman’s songs is one of their key features; rarely does a song of his mean exactly what it says. One reason for this is another characteristic feature of his work, namely his use of characters. His songs are generally sung from the viewpoint of some unusual character. These characters are often oddballs, misfits or just seriously flawed. In some cases, Newman is just presenting an interesting character to the listener (in much the same manner that Mark Knopfler, who has stated that Newman inspired him in this regard, tells the tale of a narrow-minded store clerk in Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing”). In others, he is using them to make a statement about something, such as bigotry, racism, or greed.
Sail Away not only includes some of Randy Newman’s best songs, including the title track, “Lonely at the Top”, “Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear” and “Political Science”, just to name a few, but it also presents them in the most effective way, striking a middle ground between his heavily orchestral debut and the sparse arrangements of 12 Songs. While he has many other songs as brilliant as those here, and many of them receive settings as effective as these (a number of the songs on the latter day album Bad Love, for instance, have especially great arrangements), none of his other albums have quite equaled this one in overall consistency. This album often appears in lists of all-time best albums, and supposedly was a big help to Brian Wilson in the depths of depression in the early 1970s.
Sail Away Song by Song
Sail Away: The title track of Sail Away combines brilliant lyrics and an excellent melody, making one of Randy Newman’s best songs in a career filled with high-quality songwriting. Someone who wasn’t paying enough attention to the lyrics might think it was a patriotic song about immigrating to America, but a closer look reveals that the narrator is a slave “recruiter” coaxing Africans on board to sail to Charleston, where they will be sold. The song positively drips with irony, the best example being where he sings “In America, every man is free…”, bringing to mind the idealistic view of America as the land of the free, only to add after a pause “to take care of his home and his family”, since the slaves of course will not be free – demonstrating the hypocrisy behind the American ideal. This song has been covered numerous times, including versions by artists such as Etta James, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee (with backing from Arlo Guthrie), Linda Ronstadt, Bobby Darin and even Ray Charles, but Newman’s own version is as good or better than any of the others that I’ve heard.
Lonely at the Top: Another great set of tongue-in-cheek lyrics combined with a simple yet effective melody, this song, which first appeared the previous year on Randy Newman Live, is another of the album’s standout tracks. Newman says he wrote it with Frank Sinatra in mind, but Sinatra turned it down. He also offered it to Barbara Streisand, who recorded several other Newman songs, but she said (probably correctly) that people would miss the irony and think she really meant it. Several other artists did cover it, including an amusing duet version with altered lyrics by Cher and Carol Burnett.
He Gives Us All His Love: This song, which first appeared in the film Cold Turkey (Newman’s first film work in a career which has seen 20 Academy Award nominations and two wins – as he said on the latter occasion, "my percentages aren't great"), on the surface sounds like a gospel song in praise of God, and in fact has been covered by a number of Christian artists. However, given that Newman’s true view of religion is more accurately indicated by the last song on this album, it is obvious that the song is ironic, particularly with lines like “He hears the babies crying / he sees the old folks dying”.
Last Night I Had a Dreamhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif: Another song that first appeared on Randy Newman Live, this is an odd little track filled with strange imagery – just like many dreams. There’s a psychedelic rock version of the song that only appeared on a promo single (Newman himself called it "one of the worst records ever made", but I think it's actually rather interesting).
Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear: This is one of Randy Newman’s best known songs, having been a big hit for the Alan Price Set back in 1967 and covered by a number of other artists (it was even performed on the Muppet Show by Scooter and – of course – Fozzie the Bear). The jaunty melody conceals the pathos of a song in which the narrator and his bear perform for whatever well-to-do passers-by deign to toss to them.
Old Man: A beautiful melody combined with an excellent but very depressing set of lyrics that certainly don’t make atheism sound very attractive (ironic considering that Newman is an atheist). A great version of this is the wonderfully sung cover by Art Garfunkel from his album Angel Claire.
Political Science: As Randy Newman himself said, this song is as close as he ever got to Tom Lehrer. It’s amazing how apropos these brilliantly sarcastic lyrics sung from the viewpoint of a redneck American nationalist (who wants to “set everybody free” by bombing them into oblivion) seemed during the George W. Bush era 30 years later.
Burn On: In 1969, the badly polluted Cuyahoga River that flows through Cleveland caught fire, inspiring this heavily ironic track that remains among the best of Newman’s many songs about different places in America.
Memo to My Son: A short little song that nevertheless does a great job of portraying the kind of fathers who, as Newman says “can’t get into their kids until the kid can talk.” An especially great bit is where the narrator tells his baby he’ll show him “how smart I am” by repeating overworked sports clichés like “winners never quit”.
Dayton, Ohio – 1903: This song first appeared on the excellent Harry Nilsson album Nilsson Sings Newman. It presents an idyllic – and deliberately clichéd – portrait of turn-of-the-[20th]-century Middle America.
You Can Leave Your Hat On: Another of Newman’s best known – or in this case, notorious – songs, thanks to Joe Cocker’s version (not to mention the Tom Jones version featured in the movie The Full Monty). Of course Newman himself was portraying a somewhat perverted character in his usual ironic fashion.
God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind): The album closer is a much more direct attack on religion than the subtler “He Gives Us All His Love”, and as such evokes a very divided reaction. Some consider it one of the highlights of the album, while many religious listeners were offended by it. My own feelings are more mixed. I don’t have a problem with the message, and some of it is cleverly done, but a few of the lines just don’t work as well for me as most of Newman’s lyrics. But while I wouldn’t consider it one of the best tracks on the album, that’s as much due to the strength of the competition as the minor weaknesses of the song itself. It still makes a good closer to an excellent album.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Album Review – A Night at the Opera by Queen
Album Title: A Night at the Opera
Artist: Queen
Release Date: November 21, 1975
Side One
Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to…) (Mercury)
Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon (Mercury)
I’m in Love with My Car (Taylor)
You’re My Best Friend (Deacon)
’39 (May)
Sweet Lady (May)
Seaside Rendezvous (Mercury)
Side Two
The Prophet’s Song (May)
Love of My Life (Mercury)
Good Company (May)
Bohemian Rhapsody (Mercury)
God Save the Queen (Traditional, arr. May)
A Night at the Opera is almost universally regarded as Queen’s best album. It has appeared on numerous “best albums of all time” lists (though rarely as high as I would put it), and in books like 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (along with two other Queen albums). If I had to make a pick, I’d concur with the general consensus. Though the albums before and after (Sheer Heart Attack and A Day at the Races respectively) are nearly as good and several others also come fairly close, I’d have to give A Night at the Opera the edge, in part because of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, but also because of the quality of the rest of the songs, which are extremely diverse and yet go together to make a unified whole.
The band members are at their peak, with Freddie Mercury and Brian May writing an excellent batch of songs along with a song each from John Deacon and Roger Taylor (in Deacon’s case, he wrote the album’s second hit single) and May’s guitar, Mercury’s piano, Deacon’s bass and Taylor’s drums all being played with great skill and precision. The production is also superb, perhaps not surprising considering it was one of the most expensive albums ever at the time. While I think every Queen album (with the possible exception of the Flash Gordon soundtrack) is worth owning, if you only get one, it should be this one.
A Night at the Opera Song by Song
Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to…): The album opens with a driving rocker written by Freddie Mercury. Musically it’s relentless, with the band firing on all cylinders. Lyrically, it’s a vicious attack on their former management. Freddie was rarely one for subtlety, and he pulls out all stops here, writing a song even more scathing than his “Flick of the Wrist” from the group’s previous album. To be honest, the lyrics were originally too much for me (supposedly the rest of the band was also initially a bit taken aback), but now I’ve gotten used to them, helped by the song’s musical virtues and the fact that Mercury’s verbal assault is not lacking in cleverness.
Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon: The opening track segues directly into this short song, also by Freddie Mercury but different from it in almost every way, being a jaunty little tune in the British music hall tradition. The vocals were made to sound as if they were sung through a megaphone. Despite the great contrast with both the tracks before and after, this song fits in perfectly.
I’m in Love with My Car: “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon” in turn segues into the guitar opening to this song, Roger Taylor’s sole composition on the album (and one on which he sings lead vocals, as he did on most of his early songs). While not as good as his songs on either the preceding or following album, the song is fun enough, in a slightly silly way.
You’re My Best Friend: John Deacon’s second song for Queen, and his first hit composition, is a more straightforward pop song. Though I slightly prefer a few of his later songs, this one is also a good one, and helps balance out the more extravagant compositions of the others.
’39: This song by Brian May, which he sings lead on, is one of my favorites, with its great acoustic guitars, excellent melody, and sci-fi story about explorers journeying to a distant star and back, only to find that a century has passed on Earth and all their loved ones have died. This must be one of the only, if not the only, rock song to feature the effects of time dilation as described in Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Sweet Lady: This rocker from Brian May is one of the most straight-forward tracks on the album. Perhaps for that reason, it never stood out for me as much, but it is a solid track, and as one of the harder rocking songs on the album it makes a good break from the songs from other genres. The use of a dialogue by sniping lovers, allowing the woman to get her say, is also a nice touch.
Seaside Rendezvous: Another music hall style track from Freddie Mercury, I’ve always enjoyed this song a lot, with its jangly piano, catchy melody and campy lyrics. The brass section, performed by Mercury and Taylor using voices alone, is also pretty impressive.
The Prophet’s Song: The second side of the original vinyl album opened with this long, elaborate progressive rock song written by Brian May. It opens and closes gently with a koto (a Japanese instrument similar to the Chinese guzheng), in contrast to the driving electric guitar that dominates the majority of the song. With excellent guitar playing, great vocals from Mercury, and interesting lyrics, this is another great track. The only mild criticism I have is that Freddie’s a cappella section, while also great, goes on a little longer than it should (though when the guitar does finally come back in, it makes a powerful contrast).
Love of My Life: The end of “The Prophet’s Song” segues directly into this excellent ballad by Freddie Mercury. While lyrically it isn’t all that original, it has a beautiful melody and some impressive classically-inspired piano playing by Mercury, complemented by May’s guitar orchestra and harp. With an entirely different arrangement (May’s acoustic guitar as sole accompaniment to Mercury’s singing), this became a concert favorite.
Good Company: This song was written and performed by Brian May, who did the vocals and played the “guitar jazz band” (with layered guitar overdubs) and the ukulele. The music is simple but well put together. The song’s strongest point is the lyrics, which tell a short, humorous morality tale, showing once again that Brian May was the member of the group most inclined to put a extra depth into his lyrics.
Bohemian Rhapsody: This, of course, is Freddie Mercury’s magnum opus, the song that commonly tops “greatest song of all time” polls in the UK. While many Queen songs credited to a single member actually included some writing contributions by other band members, the others have stated that in this Mercury was responsible for the entire track, even the hard rock section at the end (though Brian May did come up with the guitar solo that comes before the opera section). He also did all the vocals on the opening section, though the opera section features May and Taylor as well, with Taylor handling the high notes. The track is impressive in terms of composition (though like most listeners, I’m far from certain what it’s about lyrically), arrangement and performance, and deserves its accolades as the centerpiece of Queen’s best album.
God Save the Queen: Following the climax of “Bohemian Rhapsody” comes the denouement in the form of this Brian May arrangement of the UK’s national anthem. A tribute of sorts to Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” (though very different due to the two guitarists differing styles), this makes a nice closer to the album.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Link: Taiwanese Popular Music from the End of World War II through the 1960s
Here's a link to an old article of mine on the Taiwan Culture Portal website. A slightly different form of this article was published in the magazine Fountain, and I have an expanded version which needs a bit more revision. Note that there are errors in the last two picture captions: The second picture from the bottom is "An album by aboriginal singing star Lu Jingzi", and the last one should be "A songbook from a concert organized by Xu Shi (seen at bottom left)".
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