Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom

Released - July 1974

Genre - Art Rock

Producer - Nick Mason

Selected Personnel - Robert Wyatt (Vocals/Keyboards/Percussion); Mike Oldfield (Guitar); Alfreda Benge (Vocals); Fred Frith (Viola); Hugh Hopper (Guitar); Richard Sinclair (Bass); Laurie Allan (Drums); Ivor Cutler (Vocals)

Standout Track - Sea Song

Despite his having no connection whatsoever with Robert Wyatt, I'm going to kick this one off with a quote by the great Tom Waits. When interviewed about his music and why he maintains such a shroud of mystery over his personal life and the stories from which the songs spring from, he has frequently retold an analogy about watching a terrible film with a friend, when that friend leans over and says "You know, this is a true story" - does it really improve the film? Broadly, I tend to agree with Waits' assertion that a piece of music (or, indeed, any kind of art) should exist primarily within the minds and imaginations of those hearing it rather than being reliant on its context. But there are numerous cases of music that, for me at least, has taken on a whole different meaning when read in context of the circumstances that engendered it. Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom is one of the most prominent of these. Judged purely on its own merits, there's a strong chance I wouldn't really like it. Even as a self-avowed fan of meandering prog and off-kilter art rock, the songs on this album are so formless, tuneless and wilfully bizarre that there's actually not a huge amount on it I find musically exciting.

But judged in context of Wyatt's circumstances at the time, it becomes something quite different, something far more uplifting, compelling and transformative. Up until 1973, Wyatt had been the drummer and co-lead vocalist of the Canterbury-based prog band the Soft Machine, who had carved out a similar niche for themselves as Pink Floyd in the late 60s as a key part of the underground psychedelic movement. In '73, Wyatt was beginning to prepare for launching himself as a solo artist and started working on the songs that would end up on Rock Bottom, when he fell out of a third-floor window at a party while drunk (allegedly to try and escape from the husband of a woman he was seeing at the time) and ended up paralysed from the waist down, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. In the wake of this terrible accident, Wyatt continued to work on the album as he convalesced, all the while falling in love with his new partner, the poet Alfreda Benge, who he ultimately married the day of the album's release. As such, Rock Bottom becomes so much more than just a collection of meandering, tuneless slabs of music, but becomes an expression of all the precipices Wyatt was teetering on at the time - fear, despair, loss, love, hope - and becomes one of the most moving albums I've heard this year.

Everything about Rock Bottom screams weirdness, and I say that as somebody who's been listening to Tom Waits and prog rock for years - Wyatt's bleating, childlike voice is swathed in discordant, chiming, rolling piano and shimmering synths, all augmented by producer Nick Mason of Pink Floyd (Floyd had been close compatriots of Wyatt's for years, and after his fall put on a benefit concert with Soft Machine to raise money for him to help his recovery). Only the opening "Sea Song" has anything close to being identifiable as a melody, with everything else consisting of twisting, tangled phrases of jumbled music struggling to maintain impetus to a song's conclusion. Even lyrically, it very rarely achieves anything resembling lucidity, being largely a collection of nonsense sounds or word salads. That said, in the moments where Wyatt achieves enough clarity to say something coherent, it's stunningly beautiful. "Sea Song," a tribute to Alfreda, boasts the wonderful lyric "When you're drunk you're terrific, when you're drunk, I like you mostly late at night, you're quite alright, but I can't understand the different you in the morning when it's time to play at being human for a while, please smile!" and later the lovely "Your madness fits in nicely with my own, your lunacy fits neatly with my own, my very own." It's an astonishingly personal and evocative portrayal of the excitement and the confusion and the timidity and the fear of falling in love with somebody.

Elsewhere, such clarity is thrown out the window on pieces like "Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road," where a propulsive cacophany of churning piano and percussion accompanies a frenzied, swarm-of-bees buzzing of horns and brass along with Wyatt's bleating nonsense. "Alifib" and "Alifie" are companion pieces, with Wyatt reciting further nonsense sounds in the former ("I can't forsake you, or for-squeak you,") before a darker, more brooding mood is introduced on the second piece and Alfreda responds with her own litany of absurdities. Album closer "Little Red Robin Hood Hit The Road" sees none other than Mike Oldfield guesting with a multi-tracked electric guitar part before the song dissipates into nothing but a droning harmonium over which Ivor Cutler recites a nonsense poem in a staunch baritone. (Cutler's contributions to Rock Bottom so impressed the record companies that he was subsequently offered his own three album deal off the back of it).

This is certainly not an album for casual music fans who enjoy music principally for its catchiness or listenability. There are whole sections of Rock Bottom that are hard to identify as music in any traditional sense. But for those who get a kick out of the moment when an artist is willing to experiment with the format and elevate music back to the art form it should be, it's a fascinating insight into the mind of somebody who had had to confront total despair and abandonment before ultimately finding hope through new love. There's an incredibly powerful message and sentiment to be found within Rock Bottom, even if it takes delving through an inscrutable collection of bizarre weirdness to find it.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Robert Wyatt.

1. Sea Song

2. A Last Straw

3. Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road

4. Alifib

5. Alifie

6. Little Red Robin Hood Hit The Road

Hall & Oates - War Babies

Released - November 1974

Genre - Rock

Producer - Todd Rundgren

Selected Personnel - Daryl Hall (Vocals/Synthesiser/Guitar); John Oates (Vocals/Synthesiser/Guitar); Todd Rundgren (Guitar/Backing Vocals); Richie Cerniglia (Guitar); Tommy Mottola (Synthesiser); John Siegler (Bass); John Wilcox (Drums)

Standout Track - Is It A Star?

Well, after my various diversions and forays back into years I'd already explored on this blog, we're back to 1974, and conveniently enough, with an album that follows on neatly from the last one I posted about. Hall & Oates' War Babies is a record that saw the blue-eyed soul duo moving in a very different direction in a move that risked alienating their existing fans. "She's Gone" had yet to become the hit that would truly introduce them to a broader audience, meaning all they had was a small cult following who enjoyed their pop-inflected take on soul music, and one who were probably slightly baffled by this art rock offering. It's a genuinely unique object within the Hall & Oates catalogue, bearing little resemblance to their earlier soul albums or their later synth-oriented pop hits. As a big rock fan, I've no problem with the duo exploring different musical territory, and they ably prove themselves as capable art rock musicians in their own right while still retaining their impeccable and stylish ability to write an immediately catchy melody. It might be a little unusual for people familiar with the duo's other work, but it's an undeniably great little album.

It's easy to lay a lot of the credit (or blame) for the album's change of approach at the door of producer Todd Rundgren. Having worked with soul legend Arif Mardin on Abandoned Luncheonette, Hall & Oates chose instead to work with Rundgren, who had recently released the prog-influenced A Wizard, A True Star. As a more off-kilter rockstar, Rundgren undoubtedly had a big influence on the finished sound of War Babies, though whether all the credit should go his way or whether Hall & Oates were already self-consciously angling towards this kind of direction already is impossible to say. Rundgren certainly makes his presence felt throughout with a number of fearsome and dizzyingly acrobatic guitar solos across the length of the record, most notably on "Is It A Star?" and "Screaming Through December," and a guitar solo is a rare thing to hear on a Hall & Oates record. As such, he's frequently more noticeable than John Oates himself, who is frequently relegated to a session player here. It's a role he would increasingly find himself settling into over the years as Daryl Hall became ever more prominent in their recorded output, but here Oates has compositional input into only three of the album's songs, with Hall taking nearly all the lead vocal duties and Oates presumably just skulking around in the background playing the odd rhythm guitar part.

It would be a real shame, and a real downer on the album as a whole if it weren't for Hall's impeccable talent. Oates's songs ("Can't Stop The Music (He Played It Much Too Long)" being his only solo writing credit, and "Is It A Star?" and "Johnny Gore And The C Eaters" co-written with Hall) may be among the album's best ("Is It A Star?", in particular, is a great rock song, propelled by its locomotive percussion and boasting a great solo from Rundgren), but even outside of those Hall's songwriting is typically great. "Beanie G And The Rose Tattoo" is a vicious, moody rock song and "70's Scenario" is one of the most dramatic and impassioned songs he ever wrote, with Rundgren's arrangements swirling around Hall's piano and declamatory vocals. It's not a total departure, either, with songs like "You're Much Too Soon" recalling some of the more Philly soul-oriented stuff of their earlier albums.

In its second half things get slightly less consistent and reliably entertaining - "War Baby Son Of Zorro" is good fun, but "I'm Watching You (A Mutant Romance)" and "Better Watch Your Back" are both fairly by-the-numbers and forgettable pop songs, while "Screaming Through December" is one of the biggest missteps in Hall & Oates' career. While the subtle influence of Rundgren skewing the arrangements of these pop songs into art rock territory generally works across the album, the middle section of "Screaming Through December" sees the whole song descending into a kaleidoscopic, psychedelic freakout that just doesn't sit right with any of the rest of the album, while even the bulk of the song itself is fairly maudlin and uninspiring. Thankfully, the great "Johnny Gore And The C Eaters," seeing Oates returning to songwriting duties, finishes things off in fine style as a prime piece of pop rock.

If War Babies represented a conscious attempt by the duo to vary up their sound in the hope of winning over a wider audience, it was sadly a doomed effort as it again failed to chart highly or achieve any big singles, and they quickly reverted to their blue-eyed soul origins for the next album, simply titled Daryl Hall & John Oates, which would again restore Oates to co-headlining status. Success was then only just round the corner for them, and the art rock experimentation of War Babies was consigned to history, but it's a hugely enjoyable album that serves as further demonstration of just how diverse and interesting they could be as musicians despite their legacy as fairly shallow mainstream popstars.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Daryl Hall except where noted.

1. Can't Stop The Music (He Played It Much Too Long) (John Oates)

2. Is It A Star? (Daryl Hall & John Oates)

3. Beanie G And The Rose Tattoo

4. You're Much Too Soon

5. 70's Scenario

6. War Baby Son Of Zorro

7. I'm Watching You (A Mutant Romance)
8. Better Watch Your Back

9. Screaming Through December

10. Johnny Gore And The C Eaters (Daryl Hall & John Oates)

Hall & Oates - Abandoned Luncheonette

Released - November 1973

Genre - Soft Rock

Producer - Arif Mardin

Selected Personnel - Daryl Hall (Vocals/Piano/Keyboards/Mandolin); John Oates (Vocals/Guitar); Christopher Bond (Mellotron/Keyboards); Steve Gelfand (Bass); Hugh McCracken (Guitar); Bernard Purdie (Drums); Joe Farrell (Oboe/Saxophone); Rick Marotta (Drums/Percussion); Richard Tee (Piano); Arif Mardin (Bass)

Standout Track - She's Gone

Hall & Oates are another long-gestating obsession of mine, one that started many years ago but took a long time to blossom into proper fan-boy devotion. I imagine that like a lot of people my age, I first became familiar with them through their inclusion in the undeniably brilliant soundtrack to GTA Vice City, which featured their 1984 hit "Out Of Touch," which I immediately loved. I got hold of a Greatest Hits compilation not long after and, for whatever reason, made do with that for a couple of years. It's weird which artists grab you immediately and make you obsess over them the minute you hear them, and which ones entertain you enough to enjoy a Best Of but take a while to really hook you in, but it was a good couple of years before I started making an effort to listen to their albums. Even then, I maintained my focus around the albums that featured their biggest hit singles - 1976's Bigger Than Both Of Us, which had "Rich Girl," 1980's Voices ("You Make My Dreams"), 1981's Private Eyes ("I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)"), and 1982's H2O ("Maneater.") Despite loving more or less everything I heard of theirs, it wasn't until this year that I delved further back into their records on learning that they were touring the UK. I went to see them back in July and it was honestly one of the best gigs I've been to, prompting further listens to their early stuff since then. (I went with a friend in costume as Daryl Hall, with her in costume as John Oates, prompting one woman to exclaim "I've seen Hall & Oates ten times and I've never seen such big fans as you guys!" without realising that this statement actually outed her as a much bigger fan than either of us).

My musical tastes tend to divide between artists I find really fascinating, imaginative, daring and unusual, and those who I just find irresistibly catchy and feelgood. Those two criteria tend to be the barometers I use to gauge good music, and Hall & Oates, for all that they may lack much sense of musical daring or innovation, are prime leaders in the latter camp, capable of writing upbeat, feelgood and downright catchy tunes better than so many other similar artists. While that feelgood catchiness is still strongly evident on their second album Abandoned Luncheonette, it also showcases a duo very different from the one familiar from their big early 80s hits. Overseen by the legendary producer Arif Mardin, veteran of such classic soul records as Dusty Springfield's Dusty In Memphis, it shows them largely carving out a sultry, blue-eyed soul sound for themselves rather than the more synth-based pop rock of their 80s work. More strikingly, this is one of the few albums in their output that genuinely feels like the work of an equal duo. Although there were other albums in the 70s that gave John Oates a fair amount to do, from 1974's War Babies, where producer Todd Rundgren essentially relegated him to a session musician, it was increasingly evident that Daryl Hall was the chief songwriter, vocalist and musician of the duo, with Oates's contribtutions increasingly sparse. But on Abandoned Luncheonette, Oates contributes a number of the best songs and a number of lead vocal parts. It's undeniable that Hall is the stronger vocalist of the two, but Oates's songwriting here is, if anything, better than Hall's and proves that he's a more than capable musician in his own right, something that the later Hall & Oates records make less obvious.

The big hit of the record was "She's Gone," the first truly notable song of the duo's career. Though it wasn't immediately a hit, a series of popular cover versions over the following years gave greater exposure to the song and Hall has retroactively referred to it as the song that first took them out of Philadelphia and gave them a wider audience. It still stands up as one of their finest songs, a slow, sultry ballad that builds in intensity with strings and horns to a rousing final chorus. "When The Morning Comes" and "Las Vegas Turnaround (The Stewardess Song)" are two other gloriously uplifting songs, both defined by a bright, ringing guitar tone, and album closer "Everytime I Look At You" is a lengthy, funk-styled number that goes from a boisterous guitar riff to a more triumphant, horn-driven chorus and proves just how musically diverse the duo were capable of being even at this early stage of their career. There's also a brilliant rock violin solo on the catchy "Lady Rain" that's worth singling out as something that wouldn't sound out of place on an early Roxy Music album.

While I love the mainstream pop of their later work, there's something nice about the uncynical authenticity of Abandoned Luncheonette that's in contrast to the sense on their later records that they're now making music that they know will sell in large quantities. Here, there's a far stronger sense, in the lush arrangements and soul stylings, that they're making the music they want to make. It's a sweet, catchy and committed little record, one that might not be as full of dancefloor pop classics as we might now expect of a Hall & Oates album, but one that, in its songwriting and arrangements, proves to be one of the very best of their career. The album, like Whole Oats before it, wasn't a huge seller ("She's Gone" wouldn't become a big hit until it was re-released in 1976), and this prompted a major change of direction for their next record, one which risked alienating their existing fans but again proves just how diverse and daring the duo was in their early years.

Track Listing:

1. When The Morning Comes (Daryl Hall)

2. Had I Known You Better Then (John Oates)

3. Las Vegas Turnaround (The Stewardess Song) (John Oates)

4. She's Gone (Daryl Hall & John Oates)

5. I'm Just A Kid (Don't Make Me Feel Like A Man) (John Oates)

6. Abandoned Luncheonette (Daryl Hall)

7. Lady Rain (Daryl Hall & John Oates)

8. Laughing Boy (Daryl Hall)

9. Everytime I Look At You (Daryl Hall)

Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop

Released - July 1973

Genre - Funk

Producer - George Clinton

Selected Personnel - Bernie Worrell (Keyboards/Melodica); Boogie Mosson (Bass); Tyrone Lampkin (Percussion); Gary Shider (Guitar/Vocals); Ron Bykowski (Guitar); Tiki Fulwood (Drums); George Clinton (Vocals); Ben Edwards (Vocals); Ray Davis (Vocals)

Standout Track - This Broken Heart

Cosmic Slop is another Funkadelic record that only crept its way into my affections after growing on me for a fair while. Like America Eats Its Young, it can't help but feel like a bit of a letdown in comparison to their career highs like Maggot Brain and Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, but after a bit of patience its own individual merits begin to show themselves. Apart from anything else, it probably proves itself as one of Funkadelic's most consistent albums. The truly standout songs aren't numerous but, unlike most of their other albums, even including the aforementioned classics, there's not a single track that I find a struggle to get through. It's a good, consistent and slice of the band's now comfortable funk-rock style with a few moments that hold their own in the broader context of the Funkadelic discography.

In the wake of the success of Maggot Brain, bandleader George Clinton had resorted to diversity and eclecticism to ensure not becoming complacent and trying to copy the formula that had worked for the band. As a result, Americas Eats Its Young was a vast, sprawling double album with plenty of misses as well as hits but with an impressive array of different styles and tones of songs. In the wake of that more sprawling experiment of an album, it feels on Cosmic Slop like Clinton & co. have settled into a comfortable new formula, consisting of short, moody, grimy funk rock songs that give prominence to new recruit Gary Shider's guitar (and, in places, the keyboards of Bernie Worrell, although his contributions would be far more foregrounded when Clinton started dividing his attention between Funkadelic and Parliament). The lengthy instrumentals and improvised jams of Free Your Mind...And Your Ass Will Follow or Maggot Brain have more or less been left behind, with more coherent and conventional song structures taking their place. That said, there is little sense that Funkadelic has in any way been sanitised or tamed in this new format - quite the opposite, in fact. The edge of mania and seediness and weirdness that made their early albums so unique is still strongly evident, probably more so than on America Eats Its Young. Whether it's in the squelching, beeping sound effects of opening instrumental "Nappy Dugout" or the shrieking and wailing of "March To The Witch's Castle," there is still unsettling sonic weirdness aplenty here.

"March To The Witch's Castle" comes close to being the big standout of the album, being a dark, militaristic march set to Shider's elegantly simple and menacing guitar riff and the droning and wailing of the band's vocalists, over which Clinton's characteristically slowed-down vocal recites a Biblical ode that laments the treatment of Vietnam war veterans returning to America. While Funkadelic were never explicit in their lyrics when it comes to contemporary political allusions, and they avoid being so here, it's still the closest they ever got to an overt protest piece. While I love the simmering intensity and strangeness of "March To The Witch's Castle," my favourite track from this album remains "This Broken Heart," which is quite simply a really pretty love song. Originally recorded by doo-wop group the Sonics in the 1950s, the unadorned prettiness of its melody is a testament to its origins, but there's still the requisite amount of strangeness and ferocity in Funkadelic's arrangement of it to put their own stamp on it. Elsewhere, on songs like "Cosmic Slop" and "Trash A-Go-Go," the band anticipate some of the more ferocious hard-rock jams like "Red Hot Mama" or "Alice In My Fantasies" on the following year's Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, although it would take the return of guitarist Eddie Hazel to inject these sorts of songs with the required level of ferocity. Shider acquits himself here as a more than capable guitarist, and one who slots into the Funkadelic sound very well, but there are few moments where he steals attention from the band and does something truly incendiary, as Hazel was able to almost habitually. One of the other standouts is the lovely "No Compute," a breezy, almost jazzy number whose spoken vocal and fiery guitar lines combine to create a piece of easygoing, effortless cool.

The return of Hazel was by no means an ousting of Shider, either - he would stay on as Funkadelic's main guitarist after Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On acted as Hazel's true swansong within the band, but his return certainly elevated the band back up to truly legendary status for one more album, something this record only briefly manages to achieve a couple of times. It's certainly not a bad album, and for anybody who truly loves Funkadelic's greatest albums and wants to hear other examples of their good work, there's plenty to enjoy, but it's not going to be revered as forgotten gem by too many fans. After Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, the focus of Clinton's attentions shifted a little. Parliament was resurrected in 1974 and became perhaps the more impressive of the two twin groups for a while (Funkadelic's 1975 record Let's Take It To The Stage is disappointingly unmemorable, while Parliament released a string of classics like Mothership Connection and Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome), but the more aggressive funk rock of Funkadelic, in contrast to the more dance-oriented music of Parliament, would come back with a bang in 1978 with the brilliant One Nation Under A Groove.

Track Listing:

1. Nappy Dugout (George Clinton; Boogie Mosson & Garry Shider)

2. You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure (George Clinton & Sidney Barnes)

3. March To The Witch's Castle (George Clinton)

4. Let's Make It Last (George Clinton & Eddie Hazel)

5. Cosmic Slop (George Clinton & Bernie Worrell)

6. No Compute (George Clinton & Garry Shider)

7. This Broken Heart (William Franklin)

8. Trash A-Go-Go (George Clinton)

9. Can't Stand The Strain (George Clinton & Eddie Hazel)