My Amazon Reviews: Thomas Dolby "A Map Of the Floating City"

Mapping Dolby's World
3 Out Of 5 Stars

The Blinded by Science guy returns after a near 20 year absence with a studio album that, frankly, I doubt many were hotly anticipating. That said, I'm pleasantly surprised by Dolby's three part trip around the globe (as he describes in the liner notes: Urbanioa, Amerikana, and Oceana) that brings Dolby back with some old cohorts. Kevin Armstrong, Edie Reader, Bruce Wooley and Mark Knopfler appear, along with a guest vocal from Regina Spektor. Regina drops in on the album's most humorous cut, "My Evil Twin Brother."

The humor is something fans of Dolby would expect, but so are the strong melodies, odd keyboard textures ("Spice Train"), stories of the down, out and eccentric ("Road to Reno") or the romantic looking for a safe place to call home ("Oceana"). There's an oddity here that borders on roots music, the dippy "Toad Lickers," which I dig, along with songs that are little more than Dolby and a piano, like the gorgeous "Love is a Loaded Pistol." That song (along with Knopfler's turn on "17 Hills") will take some fans back to the brilliant "The Flat Earth," even if the sum total of "Map of The Floating City" doesn't stay at that high level of quality.

Still, you can't help but to be reminded of the quirky synth-master that gave us such disparate albums as "The Flat Earth" or the unevenness of "Astronauts and Heretics," an album I still enjoy. Dolby, in a recent interview, did not realize that "She Blinded Me With Science" was thirty years old this year as he was being interviewed in support of "Floating." He even expressed surprise, as he put it, because he tends not to look back at a career he sees as a continuation, even as he commented on just how that song opened all his doors to the present. "A Map Of The Floating City" is a pretty good addition to that journey.

   

My Amazon Reviews: Prefab Sprout "King of Rock and Roll - The Best Of"

 Making Every Word Count
 4 Out Of 5 Stars

The mid to late 80's saw a resurgence in critically powerful lyric writing. While folks like Mark Knopfler, Roddy Frame (Aztec camera) and Morrissey may have been at the forefront, Paddy McAloon and his band, PreFab Sprout may have been the best of the poignant bands to emerge from that period. They have two albums that stay high on my desert island list, "Steve McQueen (Two Wheels Good)" and "Jordan The Comeback," and this 37(!!!) song double disc is a testament to just how stunning the Fab's collective output remains.

The band did two important things in their career; McAllon wrote like a folk singer but stayed with a modern sound, and Thomas Dolby produced these albums with an electronic lushness that would have beautified even a Joni Mitchel album. McAloon has a romantic's eye for images and tragedy, best exemplified in songs like "We Let The Stars Go Free" (which can still bring a tear to my eye) and "When Love Breaks Down." He also had an uncanny knack to look inside the human condition (the cheater's explanation "Horsin' Around") or "I Remember That." In the song "Carnival 2000," he may have set to music the finest prayer for mankind ever sung:

"We ask that any wrong we've done,
the years ahead forgive us.
We ask for any good we've done,
that all of it outlive us."

The collection spans Prefab Sprout's output from "Swoon" to "Andromeda Heights" in 1997, and leaves of some crucial early sings and a couple of post-Sony albums. But really, you can't go wrong with this collection other than buying the individual albums.

 

My Amazon Reviews: Prefab Sprout "Jordan: The Comeback"

Of Love, Jessie James, Elvis, America and God
5 out of 5 stars

A stunningly ambitious album, Prefab Sprout's four part "Jordan: The Comeback" is an old fashioned double album with a concept per "side." The first looks at love and the wildness of youth, the second explores American mythology of the 50's via Elvis, Jessie James and the cold war, the third, love as an adult getting married, and lastly, an examination of God and the Devil. Sterling production from Thomas Dolby complimented Paddy McAloon's folkish lyrics, and all together, this was as flawless an album as the classics xtc's Skylarking or Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden.

In addition to the flawless flow of the songs, there is an array of classic tunes to be found. The waltz-time heartbreaker "We Let The Stars Go" should have been a hit. "Carnival 2000" looked optimistically at the coming turn of the century with a Brazilian Beat and the Irish Prayer "We ask for any wrong we've done the years ahead forgive us. We ask for any good we've done that all of it outlive us."

Then comes the chapter of Elvis and Jessie, as Elvis watches his own funeral and complains about Albert Grossman's hack biography. Jessie James is a "dance upon the run," bemoaning that he's not portrayed as a culturally adept individual. Looking for class in his departure, he wonders "Don't goodbyes deserve some Bach, not Barbershop?" Meanwhile, Elvis plots his final comeback as the side closes with "Moondog." But the best, and most ambitious, part of "Jordan" happens as God and The Devil square off in the fourth part.

God wishes that his songs came to him as simple pleasures ("One of The Broken") as The Devil petitions to come back home ("Michael"). We're finally left with Paddy contemplating the afterlife, praying that he and his loved ones will meet again. After all, he sings, "If there ain't a Heaven that holds you tonight, then they never sang DooWop in Harlem."

"Jordan: The Comeback" is just as good as Steve McQueen (recently reissued in a deluxe version) and was easily one of 1990's best albums. It was also one of Thomas Dolby's finest hours as a producer, matching his love for Joni Mitchell sensitivity to McAloon's complex lyricism. McAloon also must have felt the strain of his own ambition: he didn't make another album for another six years. As such, "Jordan: The Comeback" is a terrific album to rest his legacy on.