Jerry Harrison – “Casual Gods” (1987)

As a fan of Talking Heads it was natural to buy a LP with Jerry Harrison, best known as keyboardist / guitarist in that same band. Especially as I found the album really cheap (I think it was around 3$) in a store selling used stuff. I was probably around 18 years old when I bought this LP, unfortunately I then had the questionable characteristic that I found it hard to really appreciate music I found so cheaply. Somehow I felt the music always sounded, well… cheap. Albums I paid full price for always sounded better. Most likely, this psychology is applicable to more than just records, something the commercial forces certainly use to maximize their profits. In other words, I have over the years always liked this album but because of the above reason, I have sorted it into the B-list anyway. Stupid? Very.

Before Jerry Harrison joined Talking Heads he played in the band Modern Lovers, this was in the beginning of the 70s. After Talking Heads broke up (1991) he mostly went into producing others acts, such as Crash Test Dummies, Live, No Doubt and others. He has made three solo albums, Casual Gods is the second of these. All were created during his time in Talking Heads.

When I now listen to the album, I feel it’s a record with some high peaks which consists of a few really good songs. At times Jerry manages to create quite a suggestive atmosphere, the album's closer, Bobby, is a good example of this. But there are, if not deep valleys, at least flat plateaus on the album too. These are some pretty bland, easily forgotten and somewhat boring compositions. Some of the songs can also suffer a bit of a typical 80's sound - somewhere you hear a drum machine, some syntheseizers feel outdated – but overall the recording sounds surprisingly fresh. The cover is also fascinating and can be further studied while listening to the music.

Jerry has produced the album and plays guitar, keyboards and sings. The music has a touch of Talking Heads even if it’s in no way a copy. During my younger years, Let It Come Down was always my favorite, thanks to the powerful chorus which opened the gate to a higher state of mind. For a long time this was actually my favorite chorus regarding choruses all together, an impression that has lasted. No doubt it’s on my top 5 list of greatest choruses ever.

Years have passed and the emotional / psychological connection to the price tag has disappeared. Now I can play the album and actually be able to fully appreciate what I hear. It doesn’t sound cheap anymore.

Favorite Songs

Man With a Gun

Let It Come Down

Are You Running?

 

Tracklist

Side A

1. Rev It Up 4:11

2. Song Of Angels 3:37

3. Man With A Gun 4:40

4. Let It Come Down 4:54

5. Cherokee Chief 4:44

Side B

1. Perfect Lie 4:30

2. Are You Running? 3:56

3. A.K.A. Love 4:25

4. We're Always Talking 4:55

5. Bobby 4:05

 

 

Pink Floyd – Atom Heart Mother (1970)

I remember clearly the first time I heard this record, it was in school at the age of 16 in a music class. Our substitute teacher played it while he spoke very philosophically about music for us. The music fitted very well with his words and he had certainly planned this carefully. I was in awe of the music and found it extraordinary beautiful. Afterwards, I heard him say it was Pink Floyd who were performing the music, a fact that made me surprised, I had heard The Wall and The Final Cut, but I had no idea that the band had done music like this. Or that they had done anything except those two albums. A new world opened up.

One of my classmates were equally charmed by the music and began to discuss music with the teacher after class was finished. After a while he decided to follow the substitute teacher home to check out some albums. In the teenager's world, there was only one interpretation of this and my classmate was for the rest of his school years looked upon as a might-be-homosexual and also got to hear this quite often (even though it was always said with a smile). It didn’t make things easier for him that he once also asked to borrow a mouth spray from a classmate with the words "Can I get sprayed in the mouth?".

Oh, sweet memories, but let’s head back to the album. In the music class we heard the album's A-side which consists of a 23-minute song divided into shorter sections, the piece I then found so wonderful. There are wind instruments, choirs and sections for orchestra. The band usually keep themselves in the background. The B-side contains four tracks where each member, except Nick Mason, has written one each. The final song is a collaboration between all four and again, is a long (instrumental) track divided into a few shorter sections.

It’s was always the A-side of the album that attracted me most. Largely because it offers some variation – there are bombastic parts mixed with very beautiful, almost fragile, parts. This was for a long time a favorite piece to listen to at bedtime, in bed with headphones and the lights turned off. Night Music.

The B-side contains more "normal" music and of the four different songs I prefer Roger Waters and David Gilmour's contributions (If resp. Fat Old Sun).

The album cover features a cow, the reason for this was that Pink Floyd were tired of the images that were associated with the psychedelic space rock which they had hitherto represented. Therefore, they wanted an ordinary plain cover. Storm Thorgeson, who designed the cover, went out to the countryside and photographed the first cow he saw, which then got be on the cover. The name of the album is from a newspaper headline on an article about a woman who had gotten a nuclear-powered pacemaker.

Pink Floyd actually did a tour where they brought a full orchestra and a choir to perform Atom Heart Mother. The tour of course lost money and they therefore scaled down the track for live performances - made it shorter without choir and orchestra. Pink Floyd performed Atom Heart Mother at concerts until 1972.

As I mentioned, I've always liked (and still like) this album. But not everyone does:

"Atom Heart Mother is a good case, I think, for being thrown into the dustbin and never listened to by anyone ever again!... It was pretty kind of pompous, it wasn't really about anything."

/ Roger Waters — Rock Over London Radio Station - 15 March 1985, for broadcast 7 April/14 April 1985.

"[Atom Heart Mother] was a good idea but it was dreadful. I listened to that album recently: God, it's shit, possibly our lowest point artistically. Atom Heart Mother sounds like we didn’t have any idea between us, but we became much more prolific after it.”

/ David Gilmour - Mojo Magazine - October 2001

"I wouldn't dream of performing anything that embarrassed me. If somebody said to me now: "Right...here's a million pounds, go out and play 'Atom Heart Mother'", I'd say: "You must be fucking joking...I'm not playing that rubbish!". 'Cos then I really would be embarrassed."

/ Roger Waters — interviewed by Richard Skinner - BBC Radio 1 - originally broadcast: Saturday 9 June 1984

But who cares what these men say?

 

Favourite tracks

Atom Heart Mother

Fat Old Sun

If

 

Tracklist

Side A

1. "Atom Heart Mother"  23:44

 

Side B

1. "If"  4:31

2. "Summer '68"  5:29

4. "Fat Old Sun"  5:22

5. "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast"  13:00

 

 

Paul Young – The Secret of Association (1985)

There are few records in my collection that are more associated to my early teens as this one. It was released the year I turned thirteen and if I remember correctly, I got it for Christmas the same year. I had hardly kissed a girl, had not tasted liquor and my criminal career had not gone further than shoplifting candy at the local supermarket. It was still the innocent time of life. It was the hits Everything must change and Every Time You Go Away that had attracted my attention. Paul Young was big in Sweden this year, and the year before Do the know it's Christmas (Band Aid) had been a big hit in which he also participated. It is with some feelings of nostalgia I listen to this album, for the first time since the time around my first teenage year.

It’s not so easy to disconnect from the feelings and memories that were attached to the songs for about 25 years ago, in other words, it’s impossible to listen to the album objectively and with an open mind. Some of the songs I've more or less managed to forget, while others are still sing-a-longs. But it’s interesting to observe if this album still has an attraction to me as an adult, or was it made for an audience below the age of 20? The spontaneous answer to this is that it probably still has something to offer me, even though it’s not completely to my taste as it is in 2011. And for some reason it’s difficult to let yourself fully enjoy an album that you liked as a child / youth, I mean, to really let yourself go and get into the groove without letting it just become a nostalgia trip.

The album isn’t suffering much from the typical 80's sound that I find hard to like – a lot of keyboards, drum machines, etc., instead it sounds relatively timeless. Could it have been published today? Maybe. Some of the tracks would of course need a touch of modernization but there is really not much to complain about. About half of the songs are covers, while Paul and Ian Kewley have written the others.

This was a very commercial album when it was released and compared to the commercial music that is offered today it seems to me that the Secret of association is better. Each song is unique and has a certain quality, no song feels directly as a filler.Was it better in the earlier days, or has it more to do with that I today don’t take much part in what’s being played on the radio and therefore don’t really know what’s going on? I played this album a lot the first few years it was in my possession, then I guess it wasn’t so cool to listen to Paul Young, so because of this and other reasons (such as the record collection was increasingly expanding), I stopped playing it. But I would argue that it actually is an okay album, and that maybe I should try to create an adult relationship to it. And isn’t fretless bass always fun to listen to?

Favorite Tracks

Everything must change

I was in chains

This means anything

 

Tracklist

Side A

1 Bite the Hand That Feeds
2 Everytime You Go Away
3 I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down
4 Standing on the Edge
5 Soldier's Things

Side B

6 Everything Must Change
7 Tomb of Memories
8 One Step Forward
9 Hot Fun
10 This Means Anything
11 I Was in Chains