Marie Monday

ok early review because I felt like it:
I like how it starts. There is a certain lushness to it which I enjoy. The lushness increases with the opening of the second song, almost sounds like Bach. I don't particularly enjoy his singing though, this kind of vibrato is not to my taste. I love the next uptempo song with the bouncing, hiccuping piano and the dark lyrics lol. Great percussion too. The next one is a little too meandering for me, without meandering to adventurous places. Then comes the orchestral one which is lovely, and it swings hard af. Great stuff. In the next song it was mainly 'conversation sparkles as their wits are dipped in wine' that stood out to me. Great lyrics overall btw. The title track is too violin and vibrato for me again. I really like the instrumental bit after 4:00 though. The last song offers some of the adventurousness that I was missing a little. Eerie and wonderful. Those spooky melodies of piano/organ/other instruments that twirl around the vocals are very nice and intricate and makes some great chord combinations with the main melody.
8/10

__________________

Lisnaholic

This was a good choice of album, Mr.Soul! Why didn't you tell me about it when it came out ?! That was back in 1967 and I'm sure I would have totally loved it back then, when my interest in singer/songwriters was at a peak.

Phil Ochs, afaik, has never been well-known in the UK, and so this album is the first time I've actually listened to any of his music. I really enjoyed the first half-dozen songs from this clearly a multi-talented guy. The lyrics are consistently interesting; on first hearing, Outside A Small Circle and The Party impressed me in particular. I liked the old-timey sound of the piano on I've Had Her, Miranda and other tracks. In addition to that, and unintentionally, the album now carries a different old-timey vibe - the touch of mid-60s pop, on tracks like Flower Lady, which adds another layer to its appeal I think.
Phil's voice is well-modulated and easy on the ear, but after a while I felt I needed a break from his voice. The song structures seemed too focused on his singing for my liking - too often it felt like the attitude was "deliver the lyrics, then stop the song". The cummulative effect of this was that by the last couple of numbers I'd rather lost interest in what he was telling me.

Of course, back in the day, I would've taken a break between Side A and Side B; I would've played the album over and over again and, most likely, got more out of it each time. I might well have rated it a 9/10. Today, alas, me and the internet have moved on and even for Phil Och's sake, I can't go back to that earlier attitude to an album; that's why I'm going for 8/10 instead.

__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

rubber soul

I'm thinking of doing a music review on Ochs' entire catalog if you're interested, Lisna (or anyone else). He came out of the whole New York Greenwich Village folk scene of the Early sixties and evolved into this album, which I'll get into later. I get that he's not necessarily the greatest vocalist (he was basically a poet who put music to his words, much like Patti Smith later), but to me, anyway, he's the greatest pure folk musician who ever lived.

__________________

rostasi

This collection has always been a favorite of mine
since right after he died. I think his brother put it
together that features some rare tunes done by him.
There's also a film about his life that's also called
"Chords of Fame" that's probably on YouTube.
He certainly was a mess in his last years, but the
work he left us was really top-notch.




I love both of these versions for wildly differing reasons:

Trollheart

Okay, I have to admit when this started I pretty much hated it. His voice was harsh, the music was overpowering and somehow didn't fit. Then we got onto "The Flower Lady" and it was a whole lot better. Kind of a cross maybe between Harry Chapin and Don MacLean. Anyway much better and I liked the lyrical material. Thought I would hate the ragtime-ish "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" but I found I loved it. The dark humour in the lyric was wonderful and the breezy melody really counterpointed this, worked really well. "I've Had Her" was just beautiful, merging the best of Manilow piano and a really relaxed mellow vocal. Probably could have done without the horns in the midsection, but a really nice song even so. Very bitter lyric I must say.

Back to upbeat uptempo almost jazz for "Miranda" which is, well, okay. Bit of a showtune style to it, kind of Randy Newman or something. Maybe. The change in time signature is interesting, though not much more than that. I'd say the song is stretched a little, quite repetitive which sort of bears that observation out. "The Party" sounds like something out of a late-night lounge or something, guy could certainly play the piano, that's for sure. I would say that he's showing off a little here though, sort of a sixties Dream Theater? This song hits another new time signature halfway too, and it does change the tempo and the feel of it, though for me the jury is still sequestered in the hotel working out whether or not it works at this point. It's almost a gimmick, I feel. And he's done it twice now. Okay I do like the way he takes the piss out of himself at the end of the song, so points for that.

The next, and final, two are both over eight minutes long, and I hope they're not stretched out just for the sake of it. So far a few of his songs have given me this impression, that they could have been shorter and worked just as well. Cello and violin works on the title track, with the guitar picking its way through the tune. Pleasant enough. The odd tune-up and the clarinet intro to "The Crucifixion" sounds quite Biblical all right, but it seems to me a little discordant or dissonant (wassa difference?) until the orchestra comes in strongly. Then it goes back to atonal (huh?) again and it's kind of hard to really follow the melody, at least for me it is. Yeah, I can't say I like this, and as it's the longest track (almost nine minutes) that sucks for me. Oh well. Actually hated that.

But overall quite impressed. The guy was obviously a student of human nature, and knew what he was writing about. Wouldn't be my kind of thing, but I can see the value in it certainly.

Rating: 7/10

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Hell with it. Only one album left so I'll nominate this one.


Time Passages - Al Stewart - 1978

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Marie Monday

The next turn for my pick is still way off but I'm nominating in advance:
Cristina - Sleep it Off

__________________

rubber soul

Well, since we're nominating second rounds...

__________________

rubber soul

PHIL OCHS- PLEASURES OF THE HARBOR


I chose this album for a couple reasons. For one, I think he was perhaps the best and arguably the most important folk artist of the protest movement. While Bob Dylan, perhaps, was using the protest movement as a phase in his own musical growth (you have to admit he wasn’t much of a protest singer once he went electric), Ochs stuck to his guns and was a radical until the very end, which, tragically, ended in his suicide in 1976.

I went with this album in particular because this is where Ochs dropped the standard folk artist with a guitar persona and began using different instruments on this 1967 album. In a sense, Ochs, like Dylan before him, goes electric here, but not to the point where he drops his folk artist cred. He is still dead on with his social commentary, such as with Outside of a Small Circle of Friends, possibly the closest he ever came to actually having a single. It has an upbeat ragtime feel but the lyrics are a different story as he goes after the apathy of people in general.

The album also features what many people, including myself, consider to be his magnum opus. The eight minute Crucifixion finishes the album. Ochs considered it a failure in terms of its experimentation, but the Joseph Byrd arrangement is perfect. Ochs sings of the habit of building our heroes up just so they can be torn down. It was said to have been influenced by the Kennedy Assassination. This is perhaps the best set of lyrics from somebody that I consider to be one of the greatest lyricists of all time.

And, as it is with anything Phil Ochs did, Pleasures of the Harbor is filled with great melodies. His earlier work may be a little more melodic, but this, as well as his later work, can still match up with the best melodies of a McCartney or an Elvis Costello.

So, really, there are two Phil Ochs, musically speaking; the earlier folk era where he writes beautifully melodic protest songs accompanied with only a guitar, and the second era that this album kicks off, where he adds various instrumentation and is perhaps a bit more introspective. It’s hard for me to choose which era I like better as there is much to recommend from both eras. Pleasures of the Harbor is the bridge for both.

10/10 (The Word has spoken )

__________________

Trollheart

We're not really; I just hadn't submitted any album so mine is still for round one, as it were. Still, after the next album and then mine, that seems to be it for round one so yeah, go ahead.

Shoutout to anyone who hasn't submitted an album for round one: maybe you might like to join in?

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018