About Face Review

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(More customer reviews)To put it real simply, Pink Floyd were having major issues in the mid-'80s. Roger Waters pretty much wanted Pink Floyd to himself, as 1983's "The Final Cut" shows. Seemingly fed up with Floyd, and with a reservoir of unused compositions built up, David Gilmour brought back Bob Ezrin as co-producer, recruited a whole bunch of extremely talented players (Pino Palladino, Jeff Porcaro, and Steve Winwood, to name a few), and went about making his second solo album, "About Face", originally released in March of 1984.
"About Face" is an interesting title for the album. It could be taken as a sly jab of sorts at Waters. It could also be applied somewhat to the music... Granted, you really can't expect to completely take the Floyd out of Gilmour's sound, but it's not like fans would desire that of him anyway. However, the album finds Gilmour in control and doing things his way--Pete Townshend wrote the lyrics for two of the songs ("Love On The Air" & "All Lovers Are Deranged"), but otherwise, Gilmour wrote all of the tracks on the album himself--and David does have quite a few surprises up his sleeve here.
One thing that's pretty revelatory is to discover that Gilmour could deliver such an incredibly funky, uptempo pop-rocker with "Blue Light". Using his patented guitar echo, Gilmour bases this song around a mind-blowingly infectious guitar riff, and the song is an absolute blast, with additional thanks to the punchy horn arrangement. Also notice his very humourous, albeit slightly self-righteous spoken voiceover toward the end of the song. Granted, you could argue that precedence was set by some of the stuff on "The Wall", but still, it's pretty hard to imagine hearing something like "Blue Light" cropping up on a Pink Floyd record.
Another striking element is that on a couple tracks, Gilmour sounds uncannily like Leonard Cohen, both in terms of the guitar-style and with the stately lead vocals. There's "Cruise", which is breezy and splendidly tuneful; and "Near The End", which is a hauntingly beautiful album-closing ballad, with acoustic guitar soloing neatly giving way to a soaring electric toward the end.
And there's more great stuff. The album-opening harmony-fest "Until We Sleep" is surprisingly reminiscent of psychedelic-era Beatles--a very catchy song that grooves along irresistibly. The roaring "All Lovers Are Deranged" is a brilliant, cathartic mid-tempo rocker with gloriously from-the-gut vocals from David on the chorus. "Murder" is an explosive 'power ballad' of sorts that starts off in Dylan-esque acoustic mode and features sumptuously melodic fretless bass guitar work. The contemplative orchestrated ballad "You Know I'm Right" is also excellent, with a rhythmically deceptive first verse, and a simple arpegiatted guitar part that recalls "Raise My Rent" from David's first solo album.
Others have complained about Gilmour's lyrics, saying things like "he's no Roger Waters" or that "writing lyrics isn't his forte". Granted, he didn't exactly make "About Face" an elaborate concept album, but regardless of this, his lyrics here are uniformly excellent--poetic and eloquently-written--and his precise renderings make the most of them.
One minor gripe is that Gilmour does have a bit of a tendency to get carried away with his wailing, effect-laden electric guitar work. Don't get me wrong, I realize it's a trademark of his, and on songs like "All Lovers Are Deranged", it simply rocks. Sometimes though, it does feels out of place in the context of the particular track--the most glaring example of this is on the instrumental "Let's Get Metaphysical" which has Gilmour wailing away backed by a full orchestra, and in this case, it's just not an appealing combination.
Overall though, this album is an excellent "About Face" for David Gilmour, and I think it's worth a try even if you're NOT a huge Pink Floyd fan. "About Face" is a must-have album for any serious listener.
(P.S. Listening to this CD version of the album, I notice a surprising amount of 'drop outs' on several of the songs which can be somewhat distracting, and it makes me wonder about the source that was used for this CD transfer. That said, this album could really use a nice remastering job.)

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David Gilmour, About Face

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Quadrophenia Review

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(More customer reviews)The Who were at the top of their game when they recorded Quadrophenia and each member showcased his abilities to the fullest. This is Pete Townshend's most concise work as a musical story teller. It also features some of the best songs he ever wrote. At least six of the pieces on this set exceed even his normal (high) standard. `Sea and Sand' contains enough melodic fibre for two songs. `The Punk and the Godfather' and `The Real Me' are as fiery a pair of hard rock songs as have ever been released. `I'm One', `The Dirty Jobs', `Is It In My Head', and `Drowned' could easily find a place in music theatre. More familiar pieces such as `5:15', `Bell Boy' and `Love Reign O'er Me' continue to shine to this day. Even some of the flawed material stands out. `Dr. Jimmy' begins brilliantly but (partially) fails because Townshend didn't seem to be able to figure out how it should end. His playing and singing is uniformly outstanding throughout the set. There's some great guitar work on `Love Reign O'er Me'.
Roger Daltrey found himself as a vocal dramatist while the group was recording `Tommy'. The full power of his vocal range came out during the tours that followed and in the subsequent recording of `Who's Next'. He made full use of both, and did so with flair, style and confidence on this record. There are points where he sings more softly, points where he roars and times when he does both. His best moments come during `The Real Me', `Love Reign O'er Me' and on `Bell Boy' when he sets the stage for Moon.
John Entwistle came up with the clinic on how to use the bass as a lead instrument. His (most obvious) great moment comes early, midway through `The Real Me' when he and Keith take up the entire melody of the song and carry it under Daltrey's vocal line. It's been done many times by a lot of people but seldom better than this. Mostly however, his work on this record is extremely subtle. He carries much of the melody (as was the norm for him) but provides an excellent platform for the layers of guitar and synth work that ride over-top. Listen closely to `Cut My Hair', `The Punk Meets the Godfather' and "Is It In My Head'. The point of note is that much of what he does only seems to be coming from the bass guitar if a listener stops and really thinks about it.
Keith Moon gave his best (and last great) studio performance on this recording. The way he and Entwistle carry the melody of `The Real Me' is astounding. The symphonic element he lends `Dr. Jimmy' is something few other drummers could pull off. The phrasing he used to mark `Sea and Sand' is unique to this day. He marked Entwistle's bass line on `The Dirty Jobs' with his feet and Daltrey's vocals with the sticks. His use of cymbals to close, open and join the song's musical phrases is nothing short of remarkable. No other drummer would have played this piece like that, not then, not now, and not ever. He was probably the most innovative player ever to sit behind a drum kit.
This album never really got the recognition it deserved. That's not surprising considering the troubles that dogged it right from the beginning. After the Lifehouse episode the group wasn't ready to swallow another magnum opus from Townshend all too easily. Inactivity had shaken Moon's confidence. The group had trouble enough finding him to bring him into the studio to play and even more trouble getting him to play once he was there. The record was released after the tour began because of an unexpected shortage of vinyl. None of the members was ever satisfied with the way it was mixed initially. Once it was released It didn't get much media exposure either, probably because there wasn't much on it that would have been suitable for radio. On stage it was too complex for the band to play without a set of backing tapes. The tapes malfunctioned on a regular basis. When they did work they locked the band into a set rendition of the pieces. Moon made things worse one night by getting into monkey tranquillizers and collapsing on-stage. He recovered but wasn't himself for the rest of the tour (he dried out in a nursing home after it ended). That couldn't have helped the shows. The group never really shook off those problems and, after a short tour the following year (for the most), left it behind them.
It's stood the test of time (though it has its share of flaws that are all the more glaring because of the quality of the material surrounding them). The two instrumental pieces can wear their welcomes out quickly. In the wrong mood they sound either pretentious, dragged out, or both. `Dr. Jimmy' spends at least three minutes rambling after it's finished. `Helpless Dancer' falls flat on its face. Those are small complaints though. There's a lot to absorb on this record and it's still well worth the effort to do so. The writing approaches volatile subject matter subject matter thoughtfully and with great insight. The delivery is powerful and original. It reaches the heart as well as the mind. With this release the problem with the mix has been corrected. The sound is excellent. And, apart from correcting the original problems, it now also comes closer than any of their other albums to bringing their stage sound to record. This may be hard to imagine given all the synthesizer tracks on the recording but it's the truth. Who's Next is a close second but playing to the time signatures of the click tracks for the first time put too many restraints on Moon for that to be the case. By the time the band recorded this album he'd had enough experience with them to work better within the limitations they imposed. The bootleg recordings from the '75 tour prove this.
This is (finally) close to being the record the Who wanted to release. It's everything a record should be.

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Limited 2008 UK double 180gm vinyl pressing of this classic album, released to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the long-playing record. This is an exact replica of the original packaging and contains a voucher enabling the purchaser to download MP3 versions of the songs within.Happy Birthday, my dear vinyl LP!Universal.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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