tipula

So I’ve always preferred the first side of this record, which I bought at the time because of “Synchronicity II despite not really liking The Police. There’s less of a focus on Sting and more interesting ideas in the lyrics and music on the first side.

While “Synchronicity II” is cleverly written, with its chilling metaphor of the lake monster emerging from the slime as the violence stirring within the man in the song, I like “Mother” best (possibly because it’s the track that sounds the least like something by The Police). Who can resist the great repetitive guitar and Andy Summers losing his shit at the end? And the rest of the first side is interesting too, with the thrumming in the background of “Walking in your Footsteps,” the instrumental break with the sax on “O My God,” and “Miss Gradenko”’s excellent guitar and engaging lyrics.

Second side? Meh. Confession: I skipped “Every Breath You Take” and listened to “Mother” twice instead. I’m in between a 3 and a 4 on this one - what do you do when you really enjoyed one side of an album but were bored by the other? Give it a 3, I guess.

When this record came out I was still convinced that I couldn’t stand Kate Bush, but a friend was so insistent that I was going to like this that he bought me a copy and badgered me until I finally listened to it. Of course he was right, and this became one of those records that I listened to constantly in the mid 1980s. I love the combination of the compelling percussive background and blended rock/trad/whatever kind of musical ideas, her introspective, meaningful lyrics, and the occasional creepy background voices and effects.

Amusing “Hounds of Love” memory: watching the 1950’s sci-fi movie “Curse of the Demon” at some point in the deep past and realizing that that’s where the “it’s in the trees! it’s coming!” bit at the beginning of the title track comes from.

Pavement: one of those bands from the 90s that I had always intended to get into but never have other than hearing a song or two on the radio from time to time (like “Range Life,” which is on this record). It’s nice noisy indie rock with guitar that could be defined as jangly if it were faster - maybe twangy and off-kilter is better. The vocals are odd, occasionally poignant, and enjoyable, and there was an unexpected instrumental excursion into Dave Brubeck territory, which I really enjoyed.

I predict that paying closer attention to the lyrics will be rewarding, and I’ll have time to do that later because I’m adding this to my “I Bought This Album Because of Robert Dimery” list.

The guitar of course is immaculate, it being Jimi Hendrix. Some of it is like the jazzy end of soul, some just blistering rock guitar. And of course there are a couple of great, familiar songs, “Little Wing” and especially “Castles Made of Sand.” This is good road trip music - just buzzing along the highway, the drums rolling along with the wheels.

Huh, I found this album to be more interesting than the other two that I’ve had here - it’s rougher, a little more to the punk or soul, and less to the Irish pub band. The horn section is very enthusiastic. Still not really exciting, but I’m glad at least that I had this last rather than first, since the others would have been a bit of a letdown.