New album:
Love, Life and Hope
Artist: Boston
Label: Frontiers Records
Rating: 1 star out of 5
The latest album from Boston is ridiculously horrible.
Group mainstay Tom Scholz is still a genius at layering guitar parts, but the rest of the instrumentation sounds as if it was recorded on a cell phone. The largest sonic abomination is the synthetic sounding drum tracks, which resemble the canned percussion tracks available on most $50 keyboards in the early 1980s. Either Tom Scholz is using Frankie Goes To Hollywood's old drum machine or he has drummer Curly Smith playing those tin foil covered drums Kraftwerk built back in 1975.
What's worse, it took Scholz 10 years to produce and album that sounds too tame for an H&R Block commercial. Even the songs that feature vocals by late original singer Brad Delp (such as the the schlocky “Didn't Mean To Fall In Love”) can steer this album out of its nosedive. Other than Delp's vocals or the occasional burst of guitar wizardry from Scholz, everything that turned Boston into a classic rock radio behemoth is nowhere to be found on this album.
The lyrics for the songs on “Life, Love & Hope” are just as tepid as the instrumentation. The word “love” pops up in five song titles, all of which longtime Boston fans will most likely hate. If Delp's suicide in 2007 influenced the writing of these songs it's unapparent, as they come off as passionless as the soundtrack to an instructional video on shoelaces.
Millions of people love the big, symphonic arrangements and ear-worm melodies of “More Than A Feeling,” “Foreplay/Long Time” and “Cool The Engines,” so much so that classic rock radio routinely plays the songs more than once in a day. In an age when people either steal music or refuse to listen to anything that wasn't released by the time they started shaving, no one expected the new Boston album to do 1970s-level business, but no one thought it would be this dreadful of a listening experience either.
Independent bands with no budgets routinely make albums that sound like Stravinsky compared to this abomination. Avoid this thing at all costs.
Classic album:
Risque'
Artist: Chic
Label: Atlantic Records
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
“Risque’” was arguably the zenith of Chic's recording career. Although it was lumped in with disco upon its release in 1979, groups such as Duran Duran and Queen acknowledge the album's influence on their own work.
Group leaders Nile Rodgers (guitar) and Bernard Edwards (bass) knew how to create music that would jump genres, and in that respect “Risque’” was their greatest achievement. Vocalists Luci Martin and Alfa Anderson were the perfect foils for the songs Edwards and Rodgers wrote, with drummer Tony Thompson laying down a funk beat with rock drive. Everything from the lyrics down to the bass lines exuded a light, happy feeling.
Lead single “Good Times” (a whopping eight minutes long on the album) was in many ways a scaled down version of the good-time vibes laid down by Earth, Wind and Fire in the 1970s. The vocals were layered as thick as anything Phil Spector recorded in the 1960s, but Chic's sound was sleek and sophisticated. Not one note was out of place on “Good Times,” but the perfectionism never got in the way of the groove.
Although not as catchy as “Good Times,” “My Feet Keep Dancing” and “My Forbidden Lover” were also decent sized hits ― both on radio and in the clubs. “A Warm Summer Night” is one of the rare non-dance songs in the Chic cannon, but as breezy slow jams go it's one of the best. “Will You Cry” is even further away from the dance floor, but album closer “What About Me” lays it down for the hoofers once last time.
After Chic's initial run, Rodgers and Edwards produced and played on albums by Stevie Ray Vaughn, David Bowie and Madonna, while Thompson went so far as to join Robert Palmer and two vacationing members of Duran Duran in The Power Station. Chic have since enjoyed a few successful reunions and the shelf life on their big hits seems to be far from expiring. Expect to see people dancing badly to their great songs at weddings for years to come.
Jon Dawson's album reviews appear every Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1083 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase Jon's book “Making Gravy In Public” at Amazon.com and jondawson.com.